It had even been alleged that, involuntarily as usual, Bella had diverted the growing admiration of one youth from a sister to herself; but the unruffled sweetness of the sisterly relations seemed to give the lie to that statement. But Bella's fascinations were not so placidly accepted with the opposite sex. It had been a pet theory of hers that cadets and officers were fair game for flirtation _à l'outrance_. She had become involved in her very first visit to the Academy in two very serious affairs; retaining complete mastery over her own susceptibilities, while obtaining mastery as complete over those of two cadet admirers who chanced to be rather close friends. One of them, at least, had been desperately in earnest at the outset; both of them were before they got through; and Bella was, or professed to be, totally incapable of believing that they had intended more than a mere flirtation. To her credit be it said, she was grievously distressed when the actual truth came to light; but her theories were in nowise shaken, for with the following year a still more desperate victim was at her feet, while the singed moths of the previous season looked gloomily and sardonically on the throes which they had so recently suffered. It was an attribute of Bella's as marvellous as the ascendency she maintained over her sisterhood, that even in jilting an admirer she had so sweet, sympathetic, caressing, and self-reproachful a manner as to make the poor devil feel that the whole thing was his own fault, or that of his blindness; and to send him on his way comforted, perhaps enslaved. She never could succeed in absolutely and definitely disposing of a lover. New ones might come, and did come, every season of the year. She had them wherever she moved; but Bella could no more let one go than a cat could a captured mouse,--another statement at her expense that first excited her wrath and afterwards nearly convulsed her by its humorous accuracy. She would turn her back on him; lose sight of him to all appearances; but let him but display a desire for freedom; let him but make an effort to get away from the toils; and under the _patte de velours_ was an inflexible grasp that once more stretched the victim panting at her feet. And yet she was so winning, so plaintive, so appealing with it all! Volumes of pity and trust and sympathy beamed from Bella's clear gray eyes. Volumes of half-playful reproach and condolence in the letters she would write. "Even in bidding you go she implores you to stay," was once said of her by an exasperated yet enthralled victim, and Uncle George was quite ready to believe it.