"Not I! Don't you know me better? What is it all about, little woman?" No answer came, and he did not press the question, shrewdly suspecting that sharp words from Madame Collier or rough ones from Oswald lay below her distress. He was not far wrong: though indeed Jean would have found it hard to analyse the different ingredients which went to the making up of that distress. The actual last straw had been the softening touch of her father's unwonted praise; but further back was the aunt's displeasure; and further back still another grief. This was the last afternoon of her short holiday, and Oswald had chosen to spend it away from her. She was a lonely little being, commonly. Her fervent love had a scant return: her thoughts and feelings were not understood. Few guessed what a sensitive organisation underlay the somewhat curt exterior. With her brother, the child's heart was always craving for a show of affection which never came. No doubt Oswald loved Jean after a fashion: but he loved himself much more; while Jean's love for him was a rapt devotion. A woman too often lavishes gold, only to receive copper in exchange. Jean was learning early the sense of loss entailed by such barter. At times the vague loneliness would take shape in a thirst for her mother. When Oswald had treated her to a boyish rebuff, she would lie awake at night, clasping her pillow with both arms, and wondering how it would feel to have a mother's arms thus folded tightly round her. The Ingram part of Jean did so cry out for love and gentleness: while the Trevelyan part was ashamed, and tried to stand independently aloof. With Jem she had a sense of placid satisfaction, unknown in other quarters. She did not pour upon him the frantic devotion which she poured upon Oswald: but there was happiness in his companionship. She could trust his unvarying kindness; and she felt herself to be understood by him. This consciousness often drew Jean on to open her mind to Jem, as to no other human being. "Where is Oswald this afternoon?" Jem asked. "Cricket! Ah, that's unfortunate. And you couldn't get there to look on. What a pity you are a girl, as girls can't join! I say, Jean, suppose you come for a walk with me up the gorge. I'm all alone; and I want somebody." Which was true—for Jean's sake. He had not wanted somebody for his own sake, unless it were a somebody unattainable. Jem loved to haunt the gorge these days, for Evelyn's sake. He would always associate one particular turn in the glen with her face. They were in the wildest part of the gorge, more than an hour later, beyond the "point of the V," and in the second arm of it. Return could be either along that branch and across divers meadows, or else it could be back the way they had come. Jem decided on the latter, and when they reached the rustic bridge at the Point, he took Jean's hand for a race down the path, resolved to shake the gravity out of her.