Of course Harry Artingale behaved as a manly handsome young fellow should behave under such circumstances. He comforted and condoled with the afflicted girl, who certainly did not look in the slightest degree likely to break her heart. He offered his manly bosom for her to rest her weary head, and he removed the little pearly tears from under the pretty fringed lids of her large bright eyes. There were four of them-- tears, not eyes--and Harry wiped them away without a pocket-handkerchief, the remains of one damaged tear remaining on his moustache when the process was over, and poor little Cynthia seemed much better. "Well," said Artingale, "there is one comfort, Cynthy: we did scare away the big bogey. She has not seen him any more?" "No--no!" said Cynthia softly, "I suppose not. She has never said anything about him since we were at Hastings. I have fancied sometimes that she has seen him and been frightened; but she never mentions it, and I have always thought it best never to say a word." "Oh, yes, far the best," said Artingale, who was examining Cynthia's curly hair with as much interest as if it was something he saw now for the first time. "Didn't you say, though, that you thought she saw him that day the mare bolted with you?" "Nonsense! she did not bolt with me, Harry. Just as if I should let a mare bolt with me. Something startled her, and she leaped the hedge, and as we were off the road, and it was a chance for a gallop, I let her go across country. But you know; I told you." "Yes, dear," said Artingale, one of whose fingers was caught in a sunny maze. "But now, Cynthy, my pet, _revenons a nos moutons_." "Very well, sir," she said shyly, "_revenons a nos moutons_." "So the wedding is to be on the fourth?" "Yes," said Cynthia, with a sigh, "on the fourth--not quite a month, Harry. Where's James Magnus?" "Shut up in his studio, splashing the paint about like a madman. He never comes out hardly. He has cut me, and spends most of his time with that barrister fellow who was to have married Sage Portlock." "Luke Ross! Oh! Are they friends?" "Thick as thieves," said Artingale. "I suppose they sit and talk about disappointed love, and that sort of thing." "Do they?" cried Cynthia. "Oh, I don't know, of course. By Jove, though, Cynthy, that Ross is a splendid fellow; no one would ever have thought he was only a tanner's son." "I don't see what difference it makes whose son a man is," said Cynthia, demurely. "I've always noticed though that poor people's sons are very clever, and noblemen's sons very stupid." "Horribly," said Artingale, laughing. "Why, you saucy little puss!" Matters here not necessary for publication. "I don't want to say unkind things," said Cynthia, pouting now, "but I'm sure poor Sage Portlock would have been a great deal wiser if she had married Luke Ross; and if you were in your right senses, Harry, you would never think of marrying into such an unhappy family as ours."