“Don’t, Flo! Your elbow is like a knife,” expostulated her friend, with some discernible increase of colour. “As to Mr. Wynne, what you say is nonsense, and you know Mrs. Harper forbids us to speak of--of--such things.” “I know that Mrs. Harper was most uneasy in her mind when she saw him dancing four times with you running--yes, dance after dance--and she came up and introduced him to Julia Flowers’ two red-haired sisters, and said that gentlemen were so scarce, and her girls were not _out_, and all that sort of rubbish; and she sent him down to supper with old Mrs. Browne, and she sent you to bed because you looked pale! Oh yes, I saw it all--all. I saw that Mr. Wynne never danced again, but stood with his back to the wall for the rest of the evening, looking as cross as two sticks. Very likely he would never have given you a thought, if you had not been so plainly and openly banished: absence makes the heart grow fonder! Mrs. Harper put the idea into his head by making such a stupid fuss--and she has only herself to thank. He sent you those flowers, he came to our church, and Miss Selina took it all to herself--the ridiculous old cat! As if he would look at her! She closed on the flowers: much good may they do her!” “Now, Flo, how do you know that they were not for her?” asked her companion with a smile. “But, don’t let us talk about them. It is an old story.” “But I _will_ talk about them,” persisted Flo, angrily. “I’ll talk about your nice green tailor-made, and your winter coat trimmed with fur, and your opera cloak, and your white dress--_the_ white dress, which they took away from you!” “Well, they had paid for them, you see,” rejoined Madeline quietly. “I am glad they did take them--I owe them the less.” “Thank goodness your gloves and boots were too small,” continued Flo, in a tone of fervent congratulation, “otherwise they would have gone also. They are rather different from the Harpers’ chaussure, which is of the canal-boat type and size. Now I know what pedestrians mean when they talk of ‘covering’ miles of ground.” “Well, my dear excited Flo, they did not make their own feet,” said the other coolly. “How philosophical you are becoming! Quite an old head on young shoulders! Who made their tempers, I should be glad to know?--or their tongues? Thank goodness, this is my last half! Good-bye to early rising, lectures, scoldings, resurrection pies, milk and water, and rice puddings. Good-bye to Harperton--penitentiary and prison. Good-bye to Harpies, and hurrah for home!”--throwing, as she spoke, a dictionary up to the ceiling; failing to catch which, it fell open, face downwards, with a bang. “That is May’s dictionary, Flo,” remonstrated the other. “You will not improve its poor back.”