‘Hally, you naughty boy!’ she began, as she gave him her little, thin hand.  ’Why didn’t you come before?  You don’t know how I have missed you.  You must not forget me now that Jerrie is at home.’

She had led him to a seat, and then herself sank into a large cushioned easy chair, against which she leaned her head wearily, while she looked at him with eyes which ought to have told Harold how much he was to her, and so put him on his guard, and saved the misunderstanding which followed.

‘No, Maude, I couldn’t forget you,’ he said; and without really knowing that he was doing it, he put his hand upon the little soft white one lying on the arm of the chair.

Every nerve in Maude’s body thrilled to the touch of that hand upon which she involuntarily laid her other one, noticing as she did so the signs of toil upon it, and feeling sorry for him.  One would have thought them lovers, sitting there thus together, but nothing could have been farther from Harold’s mind.  He was thinking only of Jerrie, and his resolve to confide in Maude, and get her opinion with regard to his chance.

‘Now is as good a time as any,’ he thought, wondering how he should begin, and finding it harder than he had imagined it would he.

At last after a few commonplaces, Maude told him again that he must not neglect her now that Jerrie was at home.

‘Neglect you?  How can I do that?’ he said, ’when I look upon you as one of my best friends, and in proof of it, I am going to tell you something, or, rather, ask you something, and I hope you will answer me truly.  Better that I know the worst at first than learn it afterward.’

Maude’s face was aflame now with a great and sudden joy, and her soft eyes drooped beneath Harold’s as he went on stammeringly, for he began to feel the awkwardness of telling one girl that he loved another, even though that other were her dearest friend.

‘I hardly know how to begin,’ he said, ’it is such a delicate matter, and perhaps I’d better say nothing at all.’

’Was he going to stop?  Had he changed his mind—­and would he not after all, say the words she had so longed to hear?’ Maude asked herself, as she turned her eyes appealingly to him, while he sat silent and unmoved, his thoughts very, very far from her to whom he was all in all.

Poor Maude!  She was weak and sick, and impulsive and mistaken in the nature of Harold’s feelings for her; so judge her not too harshly, my prudish reader, if she at last did what Arthur would have called ‘throwing herself at his head.’

‘I can guess what you mean,’ she said, after a long pause, during which he did not speak.  ’I have long suspected that you cared for me just as I care for you, and have wondered you did not tell me so, but supposed that you refrained because I was rich and you were poor; but what has that to do with those who love each other?  I am glad you have spoken; and you have made me very happy; and even if we can never be more to each other than we are now, because I may die, as I sometimes fear I shall—­’