“And have you begun to think of your things, Effie?” Miss Beenie said. At this Miss Effie jumped up from her chair, ready to cry, her countenance all ablaze with indignation and annoyance. “I think you want to torment me,” she cried. “What things should I have to think of? I wish you would just let me be. What do I know about all that? I want only to be let alone. There is nothing going to happen to me.” “Dear me, what is this?” said Mrs. Ogilvie coming in, “Effie in one of her tantrums and speaking loud to Miss Dempster! I hope you will never mind; she is just a little off her head with all the excitement and the flattery, and finding herself so important. Effie, will you go and see that Rory is not troubling papa? Take him up to the nursery or out to the garden. It’s a fine afternoon, and a turn in the garden would do him no harm, nor you either, for you’re looking a little flushed. She is just the most impracticable thing I ever had in my hands,” she added, when Effie, very glad to be released, escaped out of the room. “She will not hear a word. You would think it was just philandering, and no serious thought of what’s to follow in her head at all.” “It would be a pity,” said Miss Dempster, “if it was the same on the other side. Young men are very content to amuse themselves if they’re let do it; they like nothing better than to love and to ride away.” “You’ll be pleased to hear,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, responding instantly to this challenge “that it’s very, very different on the other side. Poor Fred, I am just very sorry for him. He cannot bring her to the point. She slips out of it, or she runs away. He tells me she will never say anything to him, but just ‘It is very nice now--or--we are very well as we are.replace with’ He is anxious to be settled, poor young man, and nothing can be more liberal than what he proposes. But Effie is just very trying. She thinks life is to be all fun, and no changes. To be sure there are allowances to be made for a girl that is so happy at home as Effie is, and has so many good friends.” “Maybe her heart is not in it,” said Miss Dempster; “I have always thought that our connection, young Ronald Sutherland----” “It’s a dreadful thing,” cried Miss Beenie, “to force a young creature’s affections. If she were to have, poor bit thing, another Eemage in her mind----”