Polly spoke heartily now, and Sydney looked at her as if Fanny’s defender pleased him more than Fanny’s defence.

“I’m very glad to hear it, and willingly take your word for it. Everybody shows you their good side, I think, and that is why you find the world such a pleasant place.”

“Oh, but I don’t! It often seems like a very hard and dismal place, and I croak over my trials like an ungrateful raven.”

“Can’t we make the trials lighter for you?”

The voice that put the question was so very kind that Polly dared not look up, because she knew what the eyes were silently saying.

“Thank you, no. I don’t get more tribulation than is good for me, I fancy, and we are apt to make mistakes when we try to dodge troubles.”

“Or people,” added Sydney, in a tone that made Polly colour up to her forehead.

“How lovely the park looks,” she said in great confusion.

“Yes, it’s the pleasantest walk we have; don’t you think so!” asked the artful young man, laying a trap into which Polly immediately fell.

“Yes, indeed! it’s always so refreshing to me to see a little bit of the country, as it were, especially at this season.”

Oh Polly, Polly, what a stupid speech to make, when you have just given him to understand that you were tired of the park! Not being a fool or a coxcomb, Sydney put this and that together, and taking various trifles into the account, he had by this time come to the conclusion that Polly had heard the same bits of gossip that he had, which linked their names together, that she didn’t like it, and tried to show she didn’t in this way. He was quicker to take a hint than she had expected, and being both proud and generous, resolved to settle the matter at once, for Polly’s sake, as well as his own. So when she made her last brilliant remark, he said quietly, watching her face keenly all the while,—

“I thought so; well I’m going out of town on business for several weeks, so you can enjoy your ‘little bit of country’ without being annoyed by me.”

“Annoyed? Oh no!” cried Polly, earnestly; then stopped short, not knowing what to say for herself.

She thought she had a good deal of the coquette in her, and I’ve no doubt that with time and training she would have become a very dangerous little person, but now she was far too transparent and straightforward by nature even to tell a white lie cleverly. Sydney knew this, and liked her for it, but he took advantage of it, nevertheless, by asking suddenly,—

“Honestly, now, wouldn’t you go the old way, and enjoy it as much as ever if I wasn’t anywhere about to set the busy-bodies gossiping?”

“Yes,” said Polly, before she could stop herself, and then could have bitten her tongue out for being so rude. Another awful pause seemed impending, but just at that moment a horseman clattered by with a smile and a salute, which caused Polly to exclaim, “Oh, there’s Tom!” with a tone and a look that silenced the words hovering on Sydney’s lips, and caused him to hold out his hand with a look which made Polly’s heart flutter then and ache with pity for a good while afterward, though he only said, “Goodbye, Polly.”