“Only lazy, professor,” bantered Aunt Edwina, who then went on with her fancy-work in an absent-minded way, as if she had almost forgotten his presence. Viola set herself to be charming, and presently he overcame his seizure of timidity, that she took in some alarm for indifference. “I am trying all I can to forget that day; but, oh! I dream of it every night, and, oh! I don’t think that I can ever be the same careless, light-hearted girl again!” she cried, shuddering. “I shall never forget my sensations as I plunged through the ice, down, down, down to the bottom of the river, believing that I was going to my death. I was wondering if I should go to Heaven, for I did not think I had been such a bad girl, only a bit vain, maybe.” “A bit vain,” he echoed, wondering if all her coquetries lay so lightly on her conscience. “Yes, I have been vain, and I remembered it then,” conceded Viola, demurely. “I have believed people when they told me I was pretty, and I rejoiced in exciting admiration. Only that morning I admired myself so much in my new skating suit, and thought what a sensation I should create on the ice. But oh, how I repented everything when I went crashing through into the cold water! Oh, how good God was to send some one to save me! I shall try to be a better girl the rest of my life!” she added, seriously, her eyes growing soft with the dew of threatening tears. Aunt Edwina was listening, though she seemed so busy, for she interposed and said: “You know, dear, Doctor Herron said you must not permit your mind to dwell on the shock of that accident. He says it will make you nervous if you don’t put it out of your mind.” “But, auntie, it seems to me that I ought to keep it in mind always so as to be a better girl, for indeed I mean to be hereafter,” objected Viola, with the most charming humility. “Pshaw, child, you’ve always been sweet and good with one exception--you flirt too much. But I don’t suppose you can help that any more than you can help breathing. It was born in you, and maybe it doesn’t do much harm,” returned the old lady, quite forgetting Desha’s presence. Viola blushed up to the edges of her silky dark hair and stole a glance at him. “I wish that _you_ could judge me as kindly,” she murmured, almost entreatingly. “Miss Van Lew!” deprecatingly. “Oh, I know the things you have said about me. Other girls too good to flirt,” bitterly, “weren’t too good to repeat them to me,” defiantly. “Miss Van Lew, I beg your pardon. You see that was before I knew you,” he hastened to explain, abjectly. “Oh, I forgive you. I don’t bear malice,” she returned, sunnily. “Yet I heard that you had threatened to break my heart,” teasingly. “Oh, I did not mean it. I wouldn’t if I could--not that I ever expect to have the chance,” she returned, somewhat incoherently, her cheeks flaming under his steady gaze.