"You’ll break that young gentleman’s heart, Nelly. Indeed, it is a shame——" "Nonsense! But I’ll have my revenge upon him this time for his quarrelling with me. You see this is a boy’s dress. I’ve made the skirt of it two inches shorter than I should have done. There. And I shall be in tights; and dance a breakdown; and sing a music-hall song; and when the lime-light comes on at the end, _I’ll stare into it as hard as ever I can_." "But why should you injure your eyes?" "To provoke him. He will be there. And he hates to see me in a boy’s dress; and he hates to see me dance——" "But I thought you were never to see him again." "Neither I shall. Never." Miss Featherstone’s landlady tapped at the door, and entered with a letter. "Please, miss, he says he’s sorry to trouble you, but is there an answer?" Nelly hurriedly ran over the letter, and there was a wicked smile of triumph on her face. "It’s _him_," she said to her companion. "Would you like to see him? Shall I ask him to come up, since you are here?" "By all means." "Mrs. Goddridge, tell him I have a friend with me, and he may come up, if he likes." Blushing, embarrassed, delighted, shamefaced, and yet radiant with joy, Mr. Frank Glyn was introduced to Annie Brunel. He was a good-looking slightly-built young fellow, with a sensitive cast of face, pleasant large blue eyes, and a certain tenderness about the lines of the mouth which boded ill for his future reminiscences of his acquaintance with Miss Nelly Featherstone. That young person should have been flirted with by a man of stronger mettle than Frank Glyn. "I hope I am not disturbing you," he said, nervously, looking at the table. "I hope you are in a better temper than when I last saw you," said she. "We may let bygones be bygones now, Nelly. It wouldn’t do to fight before Miss Brunel. She might have a strange impression of us." "I think you are two foolish children," said Annie Brunel, "who don’t spend a peaceable life when you might." "I say so, too," said Nelly. "Life is not so long, as I have told him, that we can afford to throw it away in quarrels. And yet he _will_ quarrel. Confess that you always do quarrel, Frank. There’s only one person in the world who is always good to me; and I do so love him! When the dear old gentleman who made me these boots brought them home, and when I looked at them, I could have thrown my arms round his neck." "I dare say you could, without looking at the boots," said her lover, with a fierce and terrible sneer. "I suppose it’s a weakness," said Nelly, with philosophic equanimity, "but I confess that I love a pair of beautiful little, bright, neat, soft, close-fitting boots better than any man I ever saw." She caught up that charming little pair of gleaming boots, and pressed them to her bosom, and folded her hands over them, and then took them and kissed them affectionately before placing them again on the table. An awful thundercloud dwelt on poor Frank’s brow.