"Odd! Well, I should think it was; but what was worse, he went and stationed himself on a bench under a tree where he could hear and see us, and there my lord sat--perhaps he thought I didn't see him, but I did. "Lillie and Belle Forrester and Wat Jerrold were with me, and we were having such a laugh! I don't know when I have had such a frolic, and how silly it was of him to sit there glowering like an owl in an ivy bush, when he might have come out and joined us, and had a good time! I'm quite out of patience with the creature, it's so vexatious to have him act so!" "It is vexatious, darling, but then as you can't do anything about it why think of it?" "Because I can't help it. Can you have a real friendship for a person and enjoy his society, and not care in the least whether you have it or not? Of course you can't. We were friends--quite good friends, and I'm not ashamed to say I miss him, very much, and then to have such an unaccountable mystery about it. I should think you'd miss him too." "I do somewhat," said Ida, "but then you see I have so much more to think of. I have my regular work every day for papa, and I have my plan of study, and to say the truth, so far as I am concerned, though I liked Mr. Henderson very much, yet I don't miss him." "Well, Ida, now I want to ask you, didn't you think he acted as if----" "As if he were in love with you, you would say." "Well--yes." "He certainly did, if I am any judge of symptoms; but then, dear, men are often in love with women they don't mean to marry." "Who wants to marry him, I should like to know? I'm not thinking of that." "Well, then, Eva, perhaps he has discovered that _he_ wants to marry you; and, perhaps, for some reason he regards that as impossible, and so is going to try to keep away." "How perfectly hateful and stupid of him! I'd rather never have seen him." "A man generally has this advantage over a woman in a matter of this sort, that he has an object in life which is more to him than anything else, and he can fill his whole mind with that." "Well, Ida, that's all very true, but what object in life can a girl have who lives as we do; who has everything she can want without an effort--I for instance." "But _I_ have an object." "Yes, I know you have, but I am different from you. It would be as impossible for me to do as you do, as for a fish to walk upright on dry land." "Well, Eva, this objectless, rootless, floating kind of life that you and almost all girls lead, is at the bottom of nearly all your troubles. Literally and truly you have nothing in the world to do but to amuse yourselves; the consequence is that you soon get tired of almost every kind of amusement, and so every friendship, and flirtation assumes a disproportioned interest in your minds. There is real danger now that you may think too much of Mr."----