“What’s the use?” James said, roughly.  “I have got lots of reading to do, for in two months, you know, I am to go up to London, to walk the hospitals.  No one wants me up there.  Aggie has got that cousin of hers to amuse her, and I should feel only in the way, if I went.”

Mr. Wilks was fairly out of temper at the way things were going.  He was angry with James; angry with the squire, who evidently viewed with satisfaction the good understanding between his granddaughter and nephew; angry, for the first time in his life, with Aggie herself.

“You are growing a downright little flirt, Miss Aggie,” he said one day, when the girl came in from the garden, where she had been laughing and chatting with her cousin.

He had intended to speak playfully, but there was an earnestness in his tone which the girl, at once, detected.

“Are you really in earnest, grampa?” she asked, for she still retained the childish name for her grandfather—­so distinguishing him from the squire, whom she always called grandpapa.

“No; I don’t know that I am in earnest, Aggie,” he said, trying to speak lightly; “and yet, perhaps, to some extent I am.”

“I am sure you are,” the girl said.  “Oh, grampa!  You are not really cross with me, are you?” and the tears at once sprang into her eyes.  “I have not been doing anything wrong, have I?”

“No, my dear, not in the least wrong,” her grandfather said hastily.  “Still, you know, I don’t like seeing Jim, who has always been so good and kind to you, quite neglected, now this young fellow, who is not fit to hold a candle to him, has turned up.”

“Well, I haven’t neglected him, grampa.  He has neglected me.  He has never been near since that first day, and you know I can’t very well go round to Sidmouth, and say to him, ‘Please come up to the Hall.’”

“No, my dear, I know you can’t, and he is behaving like a young fool.”

“Why is he?” Aggie asked, surprised.  “If he likes sailing about better than coming up here, why shouldn’t he?”

“I don’t think it’s for that he stays away, Aggie.  In fact, you see, Jim has only just left school, and he feels he can’t laugh, and talk, and tell you stories about foreign countries, as this young fellow can, and having been so long accustomed to have you to himself, he naturally would not like the playing second fiddle to Richard Horton.”

“But he hasn’t been here much,” the girl said, “ever since I came here.  He used to be so nice, and so kind, in the old days when I lived down there, that I can’t make out why he has changed so.”

“My dear, I don’t think he has changed.  He has been only a boy, and the fact is, he is only a boy still.  He is fond of sailing, and of the amusements boys take to, and he doesn’t feel at home, and comfortable here, as he did with you when you were a little girl at his mother’s.  But mind, Aggie, James is true as steel.  He is an honourable and upright young fellow.  He is worth fifty of this self-satisfied, pleasant-spoken young sailor.”