"If you don't like him, I am glad you think he isn't," says Dorian; "but Horace is a very good fellow all through, and I fancy you are a little unjust to him." "Oh, not unjust," says Georgie, softly. "I have not accused him of any failing; it is only that something in my heart says to me, 'Don't like him.'" "Does something in your heart ever say to you, '_Like_ some one'?" "Very often." She is (to confess the honest truth) just a little bit coquette at heart, so that when she says this she lifts her exquisite eyes (that always seem half full of tears) to his for as long as it would take him to know they had been there, and then lowers them. "I shall have to hurry," she says; "it is my hour for Amy's music-lesson." "Do you like teaching?" asks he, idly, more for the sake of hearing her plaintive voice again, than from any great desire to know. "Like it?" She stops short on the pretty woodland path, and confronts him curiously: "Now, do you _think_ I could like it? I don't, then! I perfectly hate it! The perpetual over and over again, the knowledge that to-morrow will always be as to-day, the feeling that one can't get away from it, is maddening. And then there are the mistakes, and the false notes, and everything. What a question to ask me! Did any one ever like it, I wonder!" There is some passion, and a great deal of petulance, in her tone; and her lovely flower-like face flushes warmly, and there is something besides in her expression that is reproachful. Dorian begins to hate himself. How could he have asked her such a senseless question? He hesitates, hardly knowing what to say to her, so deep is his sympathy; and so, before he has time to decide on any course, she speaks again. "It is so monotonous," she says, wearily. "One goes to bed only to get up again; and one gets up with no expectation of change except to go to bed again." "'One dem'd horrid grind,'" quotes Mr. Branscombe, in a low tone. He is filled with honest pity for her. Instinctively he puts out his hand, and takes one of hers, and presses it ever so gently. "Poor child!" he says, from his heart. To him, with her baby face, and her odd impulsive manner, that changes and varies with every thought, she is merely a child. She looks at him, and shakes her head. "You must not think me unhappy," she says, hastily. "I am not that. I was twice as unhappy before I came here. Everybody now is so kind to me,--Clarissa, and the Redmonds, and"--with another glance from under the long lashes--"you, and----Mr. Hastings." "The curate?" says Dorian, in such a tone as compels Miss Broughton, on the instant, to believe that he and Mr. Hastings are at deadly feud. "I thought you knew him," she says, with some hesitation.