"Thank you, sir," she said coldly; "but I have no time to read." Her manner was inexorable, but John Everett saw that her little fingers were trembling. "Jane," he said softly, "I asked you once if I might be your friend. You did not answer me at that time. Have you thought about it since?" "I did not need to think about it, sir. It is impossible." "But why, Jane? Do you hate me?" John Everett was doubtless quite unaware of the fervor and earnestness which he infused into these two short questions. There was much of the chevalier _sans peur et sans reproche_ about this particular young American, and all the knightly enthusiasm and tender indignation of a singularly pure and impulsive nature had been deeply stirred at sight of the lonely and friendless English girl. He was, in short, compounded from the identical stuff out of which the Geraints and Sir Galahads and King Cophetuas of past ages were made, and so, quite naturally, he couldn't help saying and looking a great deal more than a modern young man ought to say and look under like circumstances. Jane stared at him in resentful silence for a moment before she replied. "I know nothing of American ways," she said--which was not entirely true, by the way, since for years she had devoured everything she could lay her hands on concerning America--"but in England no gentleman would speak to a servant as you have spoken to me, unless----" "Unless--what, Jane?" he urged. "Unless he meant to--insult her," she said haughtily. John Everett's handsome face flushed scarlet. "Jane," he said sternly. "Look at me." She raised her eyes to his reluctantly. "Did you really think I was trying to insult you?" "N--o," she faltered. "But----" "In America," he went on eagerly, "there is nothing to prevent our being friends. Everyone works for a living here. There is no high and no low. In America a man who would wantonly insult a woman who works is not called a gentleman. He is called a scoundrel! And, Jane, whatever else I may be I am not a scoundrel." A shadowy smile glimmered for an instant in Jane's clear eyes, and dimpled the corners of her serious mouth. Then she pierced his pretty sophistry with a question. "Does Mrs. Belknap know that you brought these magazines to me, and that you--wish to be my friend?" "I shall tell her," he said firmly. "She will understand." The girl shook her head. "Mrs. Belknap would be very much displeased," she said. "She would not like it if she knew I was talking to you now. She would think me very bold and unmannerly, I am sure. Indeed, as far as I can find out, being a servant in America is very like being a servant in England." "Jane," he entreated, "tell me: were you ever a servant in England?"