“You do the one and two make one, and leave the kick to Miss Bijou,” said Mr. Ketchum suggestively.  “Why aren’t you gambolling like the playful antelope, Heathcote?”

“I don’t often gamble.  I leave that to Ramsay, who is an all-fired jewhillikens scratch at it, as you say over here,” replied Mr. Heathcote.

“You gamble a little differently, that is all.  You have dropped a good deal on loo first and last, for all your wisdom,” retorted Mr. Ramsay between his steps.

“Get out your ‘Hand-Book of American Slang,’ my boy,—­two dollars a volume, —­and you will retrieve all your losses, I’ll engage,” said Mr. Ketchum laughingly, as he walked away.

The dancing had been interrupted, however, and Bijou and Mr. Ramsay retired to the bow-window to talk.  “Odd that I can’t get it, isn’t it?” said he.  “I never was much of a dancin’ man; and I ought to be, you know.  I am not a readin’ man; and a man that is not a readin’ man is nearly always a dancin’ man.  The governor is a readin’ man, and took a double-first; but I am like my poor mother, who was dull.”  Thus launched, he gave her a full account of his relatives and home with all his own frankness, and she, listening with her heart as well as her ears, did not know whether to smile or sigh:  the phraseology of the recital and its completeness amused her, but she also divined the loneliness of such a boyhood.  To her great embarrassment, the tears rose in her eyes in quick sympathy when she came to hear of the way he was treated in his childish maladies.

“Poor little fellow!” she said softly, and, as she was obliged to drop the white, thickly-fringed lids and fall to pleating her handkerchief industriously, she felt rather than saw that he was looking at her narrowly.

There was a moment’s silence, and then Mr. Ramsay began talking again.  “You are very happy here, aren’t you?  You wouldn’t like to leave it and go away to India, or Egypt, or—­or—­England, or anywhere?” said this particularly deep young man, and, without waiting for any answer, except such as was afforded by her rosy silence, went on:  “American girls do have lots of fun, I see that.  I am afraid they are too fond of flirting, though.  English girls don’t get much of a chance at that, as girls.  They don’t amount to much until they are married and get their own way.”

“Why, they don’t flirt after they are married, do they?” said Bijou, in a horrified tone, her ideal of post-matrimonial conduct being the exact opposite of the ante-matrimonial.

“Oh, don’t they, just!” said Mr. Ramsay cheerfully.  “You see, as girls they are heavily handicapped.  They can’t do anything they like, or go anywhere; it’s awfully slow for them, poor things.  And so they naturally look forward to the time when they will get their liberty as well as a husband.  But the competition must be something awful.  A fellow that has got a fine property or money is regularly hunted down; and even