"And have been about as successful as the ostrich. While those drooping lashes have been lowered to hide the love-light in your eyes, your whole countenance has been an illuminated calendar of your folly. Poor Belle! to think that she has not betrayed herself, while all Boscastle is on tiptoe to know when the wedding is to take place. Why the parson could not see you two sitting in the same pew without knowing that he would be reading your banns before he was many Sundays older." "And you--really--like him?" faltered Christabel, more shyly than before. "Yes," answered Jessie, with a provoking lack of enthusiasm. "I really like him. I can't help feeling sorry for Mrs. Tregonell, for I know she wanted you to marry Leonard." Christabel gave a little sigh, and a faint shiver. "Poor dear Leonard! I wonder what traveller's hardships he is enduring while we are so snug and happy at Mount Royal?" she said, kindly. "He has an excellent heart----" "Troublesome people always have, I believe," interjected Jessie. "It is their redeeming feature, the existence of which no one can absolutely disprove." "And I am very much attached to him--as a cousin--or as an adopted brother; but as to our ever being married--that is quite out of the question. There never were two people less suited to each other." "Those are the people who usually come together," said Jessie; "the Divorce Court could hardly be kept going if it were not so." "Jessie, if you are going to be cynical I shall say good-night. I hope there is no foundation for what you said just now. I hope that Auntie has no foolish idea about Leonard and me." "She has--or had--one prevailing idea, and I fear it will go hard with her when she has to relinquish it," answered Jessie, seriously. "I know that it has been her dearest hope to see you and Leonard married, and I should be a wretch if I were not sorry for her disappointment, when she has been so good to me. But she never ought to have invited Mr. Hamleigh to Mount Royal. That is one of those mistakes the consequences of which last for a lifetime." "I hope he likes me--just a little," pursued Christabel, with dreamy eyes fixed on the low wood fire; "but sometimes I fancy there must be some mistake--that he does not really care a straw for me. More than once, when he has began to say something that sounded----" "Business-like," suggested Jessie, as the girl hesitated. "He has drawn back--seeming almost anxious to recall his words. Once he told me--quite seriously--that he had made up his mind never to marry. Now, that doesn't sound as if he meant to marry _me_." "That is not an uncommon way of breaking ground," answered Jessie, with her matter-of-fact air. "A man tells a girl that he is going to die a bachelor--which makes it seem quite a favour on his part when he proposes. All women sigh for the unattainable; and a man who distinctly states that he is not in the market, is likely to make a better bargain when he surrenders."