“Are you sorry it’s well?” he asked.

“I—­I think I am,” she answered, shyly, the deep crimson dyeing her face.

“I can’t see you any more, you know,” said Ralph, watching her intently.

The sweet face saddened in an instant and Araminta tapped her foot restlessly upon the floor.  “Perhaps,” she returned, slowly, “Aunt Hitty will be taken sick.  Oh, I do hope she will!”

“You miserable little sinner,” laughed Ralph, “do you suppose for a moment that Aunt Hitty would send for me if she were ill?  Why, I believe she’d die first!”

“Maybe Mr. Thorpe might be taken sick,” suggested Araminta, hopefully.  “He’s old, and sometimes I think he isn’t very strong.”

“He’d insist on having my father.  You know they’re old friends.”

“Mr. Thorpe is old and your father is old,” corrected Araminta, precisely, “but they haven’t been friends long.  Aunt Hitty says you must always say what you mean.”

“That is what I meant.  Each is old and both are friends.  See?”

“It must be nice to be men,” sighed Araminta, “and have friends.  I’ve never had anybody but Aunt Hitty—­and you,” she added, in a lower tone,

“‘No money, no friends, nothing but relatives,’” quoted Ralph, cynically.  “It’s hard lines, little maid—­hard lines.”  He walked back and forth across the small room, his hands clasped behind his back—­a favourite attitude, Araminta had noted, during the month of her illness.

He pictured his probable reception should he venture to call upon her.  Personally, as it was, he stood none too high in the favour of the dragon, as he was wont to term Miss Mehitable in his unflattering thoughts.  Moreover, he was a man, which counted heavily against him.  Since he had taken up his father’s practice, he had heard a great deal about Miss Mehitable’s view of marriage, and her determination to shield Araminta from such an unhappy fate.

And Araminta had not been intended, by Dame Nature, for such shielding.  Every line of her body, rounding into womanhood, defied Aunt Hitty’s well-meant efforts.  The soft curve of her cheek, the dimples that lurked unsuspected in the comers of her mouth, the grave, sweet eyes—­all these marked Araminta for love.  She had, too, a wistful, appealing childishness.

“Did you like the story book?” asked Ralph.

“Oh, so much!”

“I thought you would.  What part of it did you like best?”

“It was all lovely,” replied Araminta, thoughtfully, “but I think the best part of it was when she went back to him after she had made him go away.  It made him so glad to know that they were to talk together again.”

Ralph looked keenly at Araminta, the love of man and woman was so evidently outside her ken.  The sleeping princess in the tower had been no more set apart.  But, as he remembered; the sleeping princess had been wakened by a kiss—­when the right man came.