“Once or twice,” replied Frances, giving no sign of how the question troubled her. “And aren’t you sweet on him any more, then?” “I should think I’m not, seeing that he’s engaged.” “Engaged? Jimmy Barrass! Well, of all things! I never thought _he’d_ get engaged.” “Why not, he’s as much right as anybody else?” snapped Frances. Anne was fumbling with the mole. “’Appen so,” she said at length; “but I never thought Jimmy would, though.” “Why not?” snapped Frances. “_I_ don’t know—this blessed mole, it’ll not keep still!—who’s he got engaged to?” “How should I know?” “I thought you’d ask him; you’ve known him long enough. I s’d think he thought he’d get engaged now he’s a Doctor of Chemistry.” Frances laughed in spite of herself. “What’s that got to do with it?” she asked. “I’m sure it’s got a lot. He’ll want to feel _somebody_ now, so he’s got engaged. Hey, stop it; go in!” But at this juncture the mole almost succeeded in wriggling clear. It wrestled and twisted frantically, waved its pointed blind head, its mouth standing open like a little shaft, its big, wrinkled hands spread out. “Go in with you!” urged Anne, poking the little creature with her forefinger, trying to get it back into the handkerchief. Suddenly the mouth turned like a spark on her finger. “Oh!” she cried, “he’s bit me.” She dropped him to the floor. Dazed, the blind creature fumbled round. Frances felt like shrieking. She expected him to dart away in a flash, like a mouse, and there he remained groping; she wanted to cry to him to be gone. Anne, in a sudden decision of wrath, caught up her sister’s walking-cane. With one blow the mole was dead. Frances was startled and shocked. One moment the little wretch was fussing in the heat, and the next it lay like a little bag, inert and black—not a struggle, scarce a quiver. “It is dead!” Frances said breathlessly. Anne took her finger from her mouth, looked at the tiny pinpricks, and said: “Yes, he is, and I’m glad. They’re vicious little nuisances, moles are.” With which her wrath vanished. She picked up the dead animal. “Hasn’t it got a beautiful skin,” she mused, stroking the fur with her forefinger, then with her cheek. “Mind,” said Frances sharply. “You’ll have the blood on your skirt!” One ruby drop of blood hung on the small snout, ready to fall. Anne shook it off on to some harebells. Frances suddenly became calm; in that moment, grown-up. “I suppose they have to be killed,” she said, and a certain rather dreary indifference succeeded to her grief. The twinkling crab-apples, the glitter of brilliant willows now seemed to her trifling, scarcely worth the notice. Something had died in her, so that things lost their poignancy. She was calm, indifference overlying her quiet sadness. Rising, she walked down to the brook course. “Here, wait for me,” cried Anne, coming tumbling after.