“I hate you!  I hate you!  I hate you!” cried Olly, vociferously, doing battle valiantly with hands and feet as he went.  “I hate you every day worse than ever!”

“Hate me all you like,” said Gerald, with utmost coolness and disdain.  “I leave you perfectly free in that direction, but you shan’t tell lies or disobey me.  Now stay in there and be still.”

And closing the door on the sobbing culprit, she came slowly back to Phebe, still scowling and pressing her lips firmly together as she drew on her gauntlets.  “Little wretch!” she muttered.

“Gerald, please,” said Phebe, flushing scarlet with mortification, “here is Mr. Halloway.  I want to introduce him to you.”

Gerald stopped abruptly and looked up.  She had not seen him before.  A fleet, faint color tinged her clear cheeks an instant, but there was no other sign of embarrassment or annoyance as her dark blue eyes met his with the singularly penetrating gaze with which they looked out on all the world.  There was no denying it.  With her clear-cut, aristocratic face, and her slim, straight figure, stately perhaps rather than graceful, and a trifle haughty in its unbending erectness, Gerald Vernor was very, very handsome.

“I am happy to meet you at last, Miss Vernor,” said Denham, with his pleasant smile.  “But you are no stranger to me, I assure you.  Miss Phebe made us all friends of yours long since.”

Gerald’s brows contracted.  “Phebe is very kind,” she said, with quite the opposite from gratitude in her voice, “but I hate to be talked about beforehand.  One starts on a false basis from the first.  Besides, it gives every one else the advantage over one.”

“To be sure,” replied Denham, “we cannot expect you to know us as well from hearsay.  It would be too much to hope that Miss Phebe should have had as much to say for any of the rest of us.”  He turned laughingly to Phebe as he spoke, and she looked at him with eyes full of implicit faith.

“No,” she said, simply; “I haven’t told Gerald any thing about you, only your name.  She will find it all out for herself so much better than I can tell her.”

“I am afraid I am not very good at finding people out,” remarked Gerald, bluntly, “unless I am extraordinarily interested in them—­”

“Which I imagine you generally are not,” interrupted Denham.

“True,” she answered, smiling a little, “which I generally am not; I am content with a very superficial knowledge.  The world is crowded so full, where could one stop who set out to know thoroughly all he met?”

“It is a bitter thought that you will never know more of me than just the color of my beard,” said Denham, reflectively, “but if such is your habit I suppose I must resign myself to it.  Now, I am exactly the reverse from you; I am always extraordinarily interested in everybody.”

“Ah, because as a clergyman you must be.”

“No; simply because it happens to be my nature.  One has one’s individual characteristics, you know, quite independently of one’s profession.”