applied this last term to Joe Fleming, and Everard smiled when he read the letter, but felt a great pang of fear lest Josephine should thrust herself upon the notice of his father and Beatrice. He had given her no hint that her presence would be agreeable to him, but he knew she did not need it, and was not at all disappointed when he received a note from her saying that she was coming down to see him graduate, but should not trouble him more than she could help, as a friend who lived about a mile from town had asked her to spend a few days with her, and be present at the exercises. She should, of course, expect him to call and pay her any little attention which he consistently could. It was long since Josephine had attempted anything like love-making with Everard, for she felt that he understood her perfectly now, and had no respect whatever for her. He had found her a sham, just as Rossie had said she was, and had accepted his fate with a bitterness and remorse such as few men of his age had ever experienced. He did not believe in her at all, and whenever he was with her, and met the soft, pleading glance of the eyes which had once so fascinated and bewitched him, he only felt indignant and disgusted, for he knew how false it all was, and that the eyes which looked so beseechingly up to him would the next hour rest as lovingly upon Dr. Matthewson, or Captain Sparks, or any other man whom she deemed worthy of her notice. Once, when he was in Holburton, he accidentally discovered that the washing and ironing, with which Agnes seemed always busy, were done to pay the music bills and sundry other expenses, for which he had sent the money, and in his surprise he asked a few leading questions and learned more than he had dreamed of. As the worm will turn when trodden upon, so Agnes, who chanced to be smarting under some fresh indignity imposed upon her, turned upon her tyrant and told many things which, for Everard’s peace of mind, would have been better unsaid, for she dwelt mostly upon Josey’s free-and-easy manner with the gentlemen who came to the house to call, or chanced to be boarding there. “I don’t mean she does anything bad,” she said, “anything you could _sue for_ if you wanted to, but she just _makes eyes_ at them, and leads them on, and gets them all dangling on her string, and wants to be their _sister_, and all that sort of stuff, and when the fools offer themselves, as some of them do, she rises up on her tiptoes and wonders how they could presume to do such a thing, as she had never meant to encourage them,—she was simply their friend; and, if you’ll believe it, they mostly stick to her just the same, and the _sister_ business goes on, and she a married woman! I’m sorry for you, Mr. Forrest!”