It was very hard being attacked in this way, when I had come for consolation! I had thought myself to be the injured party, whose wounds would have been bound up, and oil and wine inpoured by the good Samaritan to whom I had always looked as my staunchest ally; yet, here she was, upbraiding me as a heartless deceiver, a role which I had never played in my life! I did not know what to make of it. What was she driving at? "I assure you, Miss Pimpernell," I said with all the earnestness which the circumstances really warranted, "that I have not behaved in any way, to my knowledge, of which you might be ashamed for my sake. I came in this evening to ask your sympathy; and, here, you accuse me like this, without waiting to hear a word I have to say! Miss Pimpernell, you are unjust to me. I will go." And I made as if to leave the room in a huff. "Stop, Frank," said the dear little old lady, rising to her feet, and speaking to me again with something of her old cordial manner--"You speak candidly; and I've always known you to tell the truth, so I won't doubt you now. Perhaps things have only got into a muddle after all. Let me see if I cannot get to the bottom of it, and set them straight for you! You will not deny, I suppose, Frank, that up to a short time since you've been in the habit of paying a good deal of attention to Minnie Clyde?" "Miss Clyde is nothing to me now!" I said grandly: I did not deceive her, however, nor turn her from her purpose. "Wait a minute, my boy, and hear me out. You won't deny that you have been what you call `spoony,' in your abominable slang, eh, Frank?" she repeated, with a knowing glance from her beady black eyes. "Pay her attention, Miss Pimpernell," I said impetuously. "Good heavens! Why, at one time I would have died for her, and let my body be cut into little pieces, if it would only have done her any good!"