"I? No, not always, though I may be able to do so sometimes," she said, somewhat sadly, and with a sigh choked in its birth. "I have made some terrible mistakes in the judgment of character and action, Mr. Townsend, young as my life is; but perhaps the effect of all that is to make me a little more careful in the reception of loose statements, and so I may have lost nothing. And now--" "--I have occupied as much of your time as you can spare me this morning," the lawyer concluded the sentence for her, with a smile calculated to put her at her ease in the dismissal. "Well, _you_ draw conclusions pretty rapidly!" she said, turning her eyes upon him curiously. "I _was_ going to excuse myself; and yet I should not be afraid to make a small woman's-wager that you err in at least half of your calculation?" "As how?" asked the lawyer, somewhat surprised. "Why, Mr. Townsend," answered Margaret Hayley (and what woman who held less true pride and less confidence in herself would ever have spoken so singularly, not to say boldly?) "it is at perhaps a rather early period in our acquaintance for me to return your candor with any thing that corresponds, and yet I feel disposed to waive the woman's right of reticence and do so. You think that I am already tired of your company and conversation, and that when you leave me I may go into pleasanter company. You are mistaken--I think you will not misunderstand me, any more than I did you a while ago, when I say that I quite reciprocate the interest and friendship you have expressed, and that I shall _not_ go into more congenial associations when I leave you! There, will _that_ do?" Her eyes were smiling, but there was a tell-tale flush on either cheek, as she said this and extended those taper fingers, bending her proud neck the while, it must be confessed, a _little_ as a queen might do when conferring knighthood upon one of her most favored nobles. Horace Townsend, in strict propriety, should have taken that offered hand in the tips of his own fingers, bowed over it, and let it fall gently back to its place. He was not playing strict propriety, as, indeed, the lady had not been for the past few minutes; and whether he took that chance before the surprised owner of the hand could draw it away, or whether there was very little surprise or offence in the matter, certain it is that though he did bow over the hand, he bowed too low--so low that his still warmer lips touched the warm fingers with a close, clinging pressure, and that the breath from those lips sent a tingle through every pulse of that strange girl, who was either dangerously frank or an arrant coquette.