"Mees Esmeralda seems to me exceedingly able to take care of herself," remarked Mademoiselle quietly. "I don't think you need distress yourself about her in this instance. Monsieur 'Illiard has had the misfortune to make a bad impression, by placing her in an uncomfortable position, and have you not observed the air with which she has bowed to him to-day as he passed? It was not, to say the least of it, encouraging." Bridgie laughed,--a little, tender, indulgent laugh. "But it was very pretty all the same, and sort of encouraging discouraging, don't you think? If I were in his place I don't think I should be exactly depressed. It was like a challenge thrown down before him, and from his look I believe he means to accept it too! Ah dear, it's a great responsibility to have a beauty for a sister! I am in terror every time a young man comes to the house, in case he should fall in love with her." "There is more than one girl in the house, however, and I know vich of the two would be my choice, if I were, as you say, a young man myself," returned Mademoiselle sturdily. Bridgie's utter unconsciousness of her own claims to attention filled her at once with admiration and impatience, and she could not resist putting her feelings into words. "Does it never give you any fear in case one should fall in love with you instead?" "No, never; how could they when she was near?" cried Bridgie fervently, and then suddenly flushed all over her delicate face and began a stammering explanation. "At least, that's not quite true. There was one man--I never told anyone about it before, and indeed there's not much to tell. Joan and I went to stay ten days with some friends at the other side of the county, nearly a year ago last autumn, and he was staying there too. He was not like other men I had met, or I thought he was different. He was graver than most young men, though he liked fun all the same, and when we talked it seemed as if we shared the same thoughts. It was not long after mother's death, and I was feeling very lonely, but I didn't feel lonely when I was with him. On the third day we went a picnic, and I drove in a wagonette with the ladies, and he walked with the men. Just as we overtook them the horses took fright, and began to gallop down a hill. We thought for a few minutes that we should certainly be thrown out at the bottom, but the driver managed to pull up in time, and we were none the worse except for the fright. The men came racing along to see what had happened, and his face was as white as death. When he came up he looked straight at me, and at no one else, though his sister was there and several old friends, and he said, `_Thank God_!' Only that, but his voice shook as he said it, and he turned away, as if he could not bear any more. And I felt so strange and glad, so happy and proud; all that day I felt as if I were walking on air, but when I went to bed at night I could not sleep, for I realised suddenly what it meant.