seen him yet, that she knew of; but undoubtedly she was learning that some day she might.  Yet Hazel took the knowledge in a pretty way.  Too innately true to flirt, too warm-hearted to trifle, too real a woman to follow in the steps of Kitty Fisher; and, it may be said, thinking far too much of herself to descend from her vantage ground of feminine reserve.  Perhaps there was no one thing which caught and held her admirers like this:  the real girlish dignity which made them keep their proper distance.  The most unscrupulous of them all would as soon have dared anything as to venture (to her) an unauthorized touch, or a word that savoured of freedom.  So far, she went safe through the fire.  If she could have known, poor child, what sort of a fire it was; if her thoughts had even dimly imagined what men old in the world may be; no kid glove nor silken tissue would have been deemed thick enough to fend off the contact.  But she knew nothing of all that, except by the instinct which now and then gave her a sudden sheer.  As it was, she was intensely amused, and half out of her wits with fun and frolic and utter light heartedness; seeing no harm, imagining no evil; quite regardless of Mrs. Bywank’s wise maxim that what men of sense disapprove, a woman—­as a rule—­had better not do.  And for a while there were not men of sense at hand to give her counsel.

Mr. Falkirk looked on from too great a distance to point his strictures; Gotham’s grumbles over the serenades and the cavaliers only helped the excitement.  And since Mr. Falkirk would not let her fling her written thanks out of the window, the spoken thanks followed, as a matter of course, and effected quite as much.

And yet, you will say, no harm came, and everything was as it should be.  Well, there are some who plunge through the mud ankle-deep; and there are others that got but over shoe; and here and there one that crosses on tiptoe; but you would rather that they all chose a better road.  And intoxication is not a good thing, whatever may be the means thereto; and the sweet, fresh years of which Dr. Maryland had spoken, were quite too precious to be spun off to the music of Strauss, or wilted down by late hours, or given up wholly to hearing that Miss Kennedy was the one of all the world.  Not so do natures enlarge and characters develop to their fairest proportions; not so do souls grow strong and noble for the coming work of life.

Kitty Fisher was not exactly jealous of all this—­or had too much sense to shew it; but deep in her heart she did wish she could dismount Wych Hazel from her pedestal, that comparisons might be made on level ground.  Kitty would not have been timid, for the world; and yet the shy blushes which came as freely as ever to Miss Kennedy’s cheeks did somehow give her a pang.  And while nothing could have bought off her daring speech and behaviour, she yet knew it was a pretty thing to have the deference which always approached the young lady of Chickaree.