This angry little speech was uttered after Jane had withdrawn, and even while Fluff spoke she pushed some fruit toward the squire. "You are a selfish old man," she continued, her cheeks burning and her eyes flashing; "you want your comforts, you want to be amused, and to get the best of everything; and if that is so you don't care for others. Well, here is the nicest fruit in the garden--eat it; and by and by I'll sing for you, if my singing gives you pleasure. I'll do all this while I stay, but I'm going away the day after to-morrow. But I don't love you any more, for you are unkind to Frances." The squire was really too much astonished to reply. Nobody in all his life had ever spoken to him in this way before; he felt like one who was assaulted and beaten all over. He was stunned, and yet he still clung in a sort of mechanical way to the comforts which were dearer to him than life. He picked out the finest strawberries which Fluff had piled on his plate, and conveyed them to his lips. Fluff flew out of the room for her guitar, and when she returned she began to sing a gay Italian air in a very sprightly and effective manner. In the midst of her song the squire broke in with a sudden question. "What do you mean by saying I am unkind to Frances?" Fluff's guitar dropped with a sudden clatter to the floor. "You won't let her marry Philip--she loves him with all her heart, and he loves her. They have cared for each other for ten long years, and now you are parting them. You are a dreadfully, dreadfully selfish old man, and I hate you!" Here the impulsive little girl burst into tears and ran out of the room. The squire sat long over his strawberries. CHAPTER XIV. "I HATE THE SQUIRE." It was arranged that Frances should take up her abode at Arden on the following Friday, and on Thursday Fluff was to go to London, to stay--for a time, at least--under the sheltering wings of her late school-mistress, Mrs. Hopkins. With regard to her departure, Fluff made an extraordinary request--she earnestly begged that Frances should not accompany her to Martinstown. She gave no reason for this desire; but she enforced it by sundry pettings, by numerous embraces, by both tears and smiles--in short, by the thousand and one fascinations which the little creature possessed. A certain Mrs. Mansfield was to escort Fluff to London; and Frances arranged that the two should meet at the railway station, and catch the twelve-o'clock train for town. "I don't want you to introduce her to me, darling," said Fluff. "I can't possibly mistake her, for she is tall, and has a hooked nose, and always wears black, you say. And you know what I am, just exactly like my name; so it will be impossible for us not to recognize each other." Thus Fluff got her way, and Frances saw her off, not from the railway platform, but standing under the elm-trees where Fluff had first seen her and Arnold together.