Burning with suppressed indignation, I accepted her careless invitation, and followed the precious pair into the shrubbery, there being no other way of obtaining the explanation I was determined to have this morning. I had often seen such demonstrations before, and borne them with comparative patience, knowing how well worth the trouble of winning, how true and tender after all, if only it could be reached under these disguising caprices, was the wayward little heart that had tested my love and tried my temper all these years. From her very cradle she provoked me, from the frills of her baby cap she mocked me; and, grown into the ranks of little girlhood, systematically aggravated me by artful preference of all the little boys I most hated, for whose infant attentions she unceremoniously deserted my elder claim and assured protection. And yet, in all her childish troubles, from torn frocks to Latin lexicons, she flew to me for aid, counsel, sympathy, and protection, repenting of all her sins against me, and walking in a straight path again, till between her sweet eyes, and her pretty confessions, her helpless reliance, and gentle ministering to my vanity, she had regained a larger place than before in my alienated heart, and could afford to play the very deuce with it again. 'Twenty years of this sort of thing must have settled the question one way or another,' I argued; 'there is no use in my putting up any longer with this bewitched town, and my empty slate, Phil's nonsense, and Tom Hayes's impudence, my aunt's sermons, and my uncle's lectures, and Miss Dora's caprices; she has either flirted with me, or she has loved me from her cradle.' I have sometimes thought the latter, but I greatly suspect it is the former. Grand query, which is it? and I resolved to know to-day.