"I'm sure," she said, "I used to watch for _you_ every time you went by to school, and one day the frill of your shirt sleeve was hanging down, torn on a nail. I was sorry, and wished that I could have run out and mended it for you!" What this reminiscence had to do with Agnes Anne's being allowed to go to Miss Huntingdon's I do not quite see. But learned men are much like others, and somehow the little speech softened my father. So Agnes Anne went, as, indeed, my mother had resolved from the beginning that she should. And it was through Agnes Anne that my temptation came. She made a friend there. Agnes Anne always must have one bosom friend of her own sex. For this Irma was too old, as well as too brilliant, too fitful, fairylike, changeful in her mood to serve long. Besides, she awed Agnes Anne too much to allow her to confide in her properly. And without hour-long confessions all about nothing, Agnes Anne had no use for any girl friend. There was an unwritten convention that one should listen sympathetically to the other's tale of secrets, no matter how long and involved, always on the supposition that the service should be mutual. Charlotte Anderson was the name of Agnes Anne's friend. In a week's time these two were seldom separate, and wandered about our garden, and under the tall pine umbrellas with bent heads and arms lovingly interlaced. Charlotte was a pretty girl, blooming, fresh, rosy, with a pair of bold black eyes which at once denied and defied, and then, as it were, suddenly drooped yieldingly. I was a fool. I might have known--only I did not. Now my idea was to make just as much love to Charlotte as would warn Miss Irma that she was in danger of losing me and to assist me in this (though I did not reveal my intention of merely baiting my trap with her) who more willing than Charlotte Anderson! But I had counted without two somewhat important factors--Miss Irma, and Miss Seraphina Huntingdon. I was utterly deceived about the character of Irma, and I had no idea of the extreme notions of rigid propriety upon which Miss Seraphina conducted her business, nor of the explanation of the large proportion of successful weddings in which the lady mantua-maker had played the part of subordinate providence. Indeed, certain of the light-minded youth of Eden Valley called the parlour with the faded red velvet chairs by the name of "Little Heaven"--because so many marriages had been made there. CHAPTER XXVI PERFIDY, THY NAME IS WOMAN!