He looks at her curiously. He does not understand this queer child--for woman she certainly is not--and before he knows it, he is drawing a comparison between her and the girl who jilted him so cruelly because he was not rich--beautiful Queenie Trevalyn, and at the thought of his lost love, his brows contract with a spasm of pain, and a stifled groan breaks from his lips. Yes, he was comparing Queenie and Jess. That cruel wound is still gaping open, and every thought of Queenie gives his heart a stab of the keenest pain, and for the instant he forgets the girl at his feet, remembering only that summer and the beautiful, false face that drew him on like a lodestar, only to wreck his heart on the bitter rock of disappointment. And at the memory of it all, he covered his face with his hands and groaned aloud. Jess was a child of impulse. With no thought of the imprudence of her action, in an instant she was on her feet, and in the next a pair of warm arms were thrown about his neck, two terror-stricken, childish eyes were looking into his, a soft face was close to his, and Jess was crying, excitedly: “Oh, Mr. Moore, are you sick? I’m so sorry. I wish it were I instead of you. No, that is not just what I want to say. What I mean is that I wish that I could take it from you, or suffer it in your stead, that you might be free from it.” And the young voice which utters the words quivers with emotion, and a little gust of tears, wrung from an anguished, little heart, fall upon his face. He is so startled for a moment he is fairly speechless--struck dumb with astonishment. If a thunderbolt had fallen from a clear sky, or the ground had suddenly opened beneath his feet, he could not have been more astounded. The touch of those soft arms about his neck fairly electrifies him. He starts back, turns a dull red, then flushes hotly, as he looks at her and tries to answer. “Ill! No,” he replies. “I am not ill, thank you, Miss Jess,” he says, at length, and he laughs a little, forced laugh, as she stands and looks at him in wonder, her arms having fallen at her side. She is dimly conscious that she has made herself ridiculous in his eyes by her solicitude, and that her impulsive action throwing her arms about him had greatly offended him, and she wondered vaguely, as she stands before him covered with confusion, how she ever dared do it. CHAPTER XXIV. ONLY AN IMPULSIVE CHILD. Mr. Moore looks at the girl standing before him long and earnestly; then, reaching forward, he catches her hands in one of his own, asking, slowly: “Why should it matter to you, little one, whether I was ill or well? Why should you care?” “Because I like you so much,” answered the girl, unconscious of what her words implied. “I should not be quite happy unless you were happy, too.” And she looked up, with those frank, childish eyes of hers, directly into his face. “Why do you like me, little Jess?” he queried, somewhat huskily.