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"I hope your passion would be to better purpose, though I doubt it," she said. "I believe Kitty might be led into follies and complications by exaggerated notions of kindness, but she is as far from falling in love as I am—and that is saying a great deal."

* You will never marry, Ella?"

"Papa, how preposterous is the very idea! And that brings us back to Kitty. A woman who renounces marriage, as I do, must seek for compensation in friendship. I cannot tell you what it would be to me now to lose the friend I have found in Kitty Silver."

"There is no present danger of that kind that I see," Sir George said. "Miss Kitty Silver likes us, and likes our ways. She will not go yet.”

"We have no kind of claim upon her time, remember, papa," Ella said; "but it is not the idea of losing Kitty for the present that makes me uneasy. It is the future I am thinking of. Supposing Kitty holds herself free to accept a home with us instead of returning to Mrs Wingfield-of course, I do not know how matters stand with them, and speak hypothetically -would you offer any objection to such an arrangement ?"

Sir George looked like a man who is suddenly asked to lend his dearest friend a large sum of money.

"She is a poor clergyman's daughter, or something of that sort, isn't she? and has been a governess. We should have to pay her at least a hundred a year."

"Poor papa!" cried Ella, laughing heartily at this display of her father's little weakness; "poor, victimised papa! it is too bad to come down upon you with such expensive whims; but if Kitty is to be had at any price, I must have her-always supposing Kitty to be all and no more than we take her to be."

"There is just a dash of artistic Bohemia about her,” said Sir George, "that makes me feel a little uncertain whether 'Love me, love my friends,' would apply in her case;" and then he stopped short, and looked at Ella earnestly.

66

Exactly," answered Ella; "but how are we ever to obtain ertainty? Mrs Wingfield is the only friend of Kitty's we

know, and she is a gentlewoman, though sadly destitute of brains and education. We couldn't go to her for 'references' of her most intimate friend?"

"Will it not be better to leave matters as they are for the present?" asked her father, unwilling to spend an extra hundred a year, even to secure the society of a young, handsome, and gifted woman.

And for the present the matter was allowed to rest.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

KITTY AND HER PROTÉGE.

No sooner did Kitty find herself alone with Francine, on her way to Bourdeaux, than a delicious, vagabondish sense of freedom took possession of her. It was a long time now since she had experienced the feeling, and though she was a slave of her own free will, and the chains that bound her were covered with velvet and down, they galled a little at times. To-day she cast them off, and felt glad.

Perry might prove intractable, their interview might be bitter, the consequences of it might be unpleasant to herself; but she gave herself up to the hour with the joy of a released bird. "What a bright day it is!" she thought, as the train sped on; "how blue the sky looks: how sweet the air smells! I wonder why it is that I notice these things so seldom now?"

How should she have time to notice them, when occupied from morning till night with the task of pleasing others?

"I am young," meditated Kitty; "I have faculty enough for a dozen people; I could slip into almost any little groove and enjoy existence, provided I had one thing-money. But, as it is, I must let trifles go, however pleasant; I am like a person on a long journey, who cannot stop to pick up flowers or chase butterflies, though I long to do it."

Then, giving utterance to her thoughts, she said, “Françine, my child, are you happy?"

The girl opened her round blue eyes in surprise.

"Very happy, when mademoiselle is satisfied with me," she said.

"But have you nothing in life to make you happier than that no sweetheart?"

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"Not yet, mademoiselle," answered Françine, blushing. "I have a good mistress, no cares for the morrow, and holidays on saints' days. I am quite contented."

"You poor little thing!" Kitty said, in a tone of magnificent compassion. She could not help pitying Françine for having a contented mind. To her, to live meant to desire, and to desire meant to obtain. After a little while she took a Napoleon out of her purse, rather abruptly, and said, holding it up before the girl's eyes—

"Françine, if you see anything or hear anything to-day that feel sure I should not wish talked of, you are to hold your Do you understand me?"

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Yes, mademoiselle."

"Are you quite sure?”

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"Then, here is your Napoleon.

But if you are imprudent, if you tattle, if you allow other people to bother you into talking about me and my affairs, I should send you back to your home forthwith, though I like my little maid so much," she added, with a subtle show of mixed severity and affection.

Françine took her Napoleon, cried a little out of gratitude at being trusted, and then retired into a corner, like a submissive dog, who knows that for the present he is not wanted. Kitty was silent till the train arrived at Bourdeaux, and stepped out on to the platform, calm, though flushed.

She drew her veil over her face, saw at a glance that Perry was not there; then, beckoning a coachman, ordered him to drive her to the Hôtel de la Paix.

There are some things in which one never grows older, and Kitty, who grew, morally speaking, months every day, was

as young as ever in this, that she could not meet Perry unmoved.

Other people were almost impersonal to her. Dr Norman was a sad and lamentable circumstance in her life; Myra had been a fortunate circumstance; Sir George and Ella were delightful circumstances; Perry only seemed a really existent person-flesh and spirit; and she could no more forget him than she could forget herself.

She wished him to keep out of sight; she would fain have forgotten him; she could be outwardly cruel to him—but he exercised the same spell over her that she exercised over other people, only in a different degree.

On this occasion her heart was beating fast all the time that she greeted him with apparent indifference; he did not see it, he did not divine it, but under that calm, beautifullypoised manner, burned a volcanic fire of conflicting passions.

They shook hands and talked of the weather till they were fairly installed in a little salon where Perry had provided a pretty breakfast, adorned with flowers, for Perry never forgot to fête Kitty under any circumstances. Then Kitty let Françine take off her soft summer cloak of creamy white, and her modest straw bonnet with its one little rosebud, and motioning the young girl to a seat by the window, sat down at the head of Perry's table.

"What are we to have?" she said, with an affectation of the old childish gourmandise that Perry had delighted to indulge; "little fish, little birds? and, oh, there is some nougât! Give me a bit, this minute, please."

Perry chipped off a bit of the nougat, delighted, and Kitty crushed it with her strong, beautiful little teeth, and asked for She had overcome her agitation now, and determined to be good and kind to her poor faithful protégé, and make him happy for an hour, if she could.

more.

"And now, tell me," she said, "(my little maid understands no English), from whence you came, and where you are going to? How is dear Polly and her chicks? What is she doing?

And is Vittoria married? I want to hear everything about everybody."

Perry began his catechism at the end. Vittoria was married; Polly Cornford and her chicks had gone home; her stay in Paris had turned out well, he thought, and so on.

"And what are you going to do with yourself this winter, dear Perry?" asked Kitty.

Perry was clumsily carving a little bird.

"I will tell you when I have achieved this performance," he said; and as soon as a delicate bit was finally conveyed to Kitty's plate, added

"I am going to Madrid to see the pictures of Velasquez, and from Madrid to Cadiz, and from Cadiz to Tunis, and perhaps on to Algiers. Algiers is a fine place for artists, some of our fellows say. If I like it, I shall stay and paint there."

Perry said all this as circumspectly as if the plan had been digested for months, whereas it had only come into his mind during the last few minutes. Finding Kitty miles farther from him than before, reading in her very friendliness and ease a sign that all question of love was over between them, he felt bound to go somewhere, and do something, just because so much was expected of him.

"What a delightful journey!" Kitty cried, enthusiastically, though in her inmost heart she felt offended at Perry's sudden show of independence. "The change will be good for your health, too."

"And where will you be meanwhile?" Perry asked, very sullenly.

"It is quite uncertain as yet."

"Don't marry that miserly old beggar, Sir George Bartelotte," Perry added.

Kitty crimsoned.

"O Perry! Sir George Bartelotte would no more dream of marrying me than I should dream of "

"Marrying me?"

"If you finish my sentences for me, you must do it after your own fashion," Kitty said, laughing; "but you shouldn't

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