"No, dear, don't. But stay a few minutes; I have something to say to you." "Now, whatever can you have to say, Claire dear? Nothing about that-- that--oh, don't, pray. I could not bear it. All the resolution I had was needed to come here at all, and, as I told you in my letter, it was impossible for me to come before. Frank would not let me." "I want to talk to you very--very seriously." "About that dreadful affair?" "No," said Claire, with a curiously solemn look coming over her face, and her voice assuming a deep, tragic tone. "Then it is about--oh, Claire!" she cried passionately, as she glanced up at a floridly painted portrait of herself on the wall; "I do wish you would take that picture down." "Why should you mind that? You know papa likes it." "Because it reminds me so of the past." "When you were so weak and frivolous with that poor fellow Louis." "Now I did not come here to be scolded," cried the childlike little thing passionately. "I don't care. I did love poor Louis, and he'd no business to go away and die." "Hush, hush, May, my darling," said Claire, with a pained face. "I did not scold you." "You did," sobbed the other; "you said something about Louis, and that you had something to talk to me about. What is it?" she cried with a look of childish fright in her eyes. "What is it?" she repeated, and she clung to her sister excitedly. "Hush, hush, May, I was not going to scold, only to talk to you." "It will keep, I'm sure," cried May, with the scared look intensifying. "No, dearest, it will not keep, for it is something very serious--so serious that I would not have our father know it for the world." "Lack-a-day, Claire," cried Mrs Burnett, with assumed mirth forming pleasant dimples in her sweet childish face, "what is the matter?" "I wanted to say a few words of warning to you, May dear. You know how ready people are to gossip?" "Good lack, yes, indeed they are. But what--?" she faltered, "what--?" "And several times lately they have been busy with your name." "With my name!" cried Mrs Burnett, with a forced laugh, and a sigh of relief. "Yes, dear, about little bits of freedom, and--and--I don't like to call it coquetry. I want you, dearest, to promise me that you will be a little more staid. Dear May, it pains me more than I can say." "Frump! frump! frump! Why you silly, weak, quakerish old frump, Claire! What nonsense to be sure! A woman in my position, asked out as I am to rout, and kettledrum, and ball, night after night, cannot sit mumchance against the wall, and mumble scandal with the old maids. Now, I wonder who has been putting all this in your head?" "I will not repeat names, dear; but it is some one whom I can trust." "Then she is a scandalous old harridan, whoever she is," cried Mrs Burnett with great warmth. "And what do you know about such matters?" "I know it pains me to hear that my dear sister's name is mentioned freely at the officers' mess, and made a common toast."