“Oh, dear, not so bad as that, I hope!” she said quickly, smiling kindly, yet with a certain air of mature toleration, as if she were addressing her little cousin.  “You only fancied it.  And it isn’t very complimentary to my eyes if their kindness drove you to such horrid thoughts.  And then what happened?” she pursued smilingly.

“I had a job to carry a man’s bag, and it got me a night’s lodging and a meal,” said Randolph, almost brusquely, feeling the utter collapse of his story.

“And then?” she said encouragingly.

“I got a situation at the bank.”

“When?”

“The next day,” faltered Randolph, expecting to hear her laugh.  But Miss Avondale heaved the faintest sigh.

“You are very lucky,” she said.

“Not so very,” returned Randolph quickly, “for the next time you saw me you cut me dead.”

“I believe I did,” she said smilingly.

“Would you mind telling me why?”

“Are you sure you won’t be angry?”

“I may be pained,” said Randolph prudently.

“I apologize for that beforehand.  Well, that first night I saw a young man looking very anxious, very uncomfortable, and very weak.  The second time—­and not very long after—­I saw him well dressed, lounging like any other young man on a Sunday afternoon, and I believed that he took the liberty of bowing to me then because I had once looked at him under a misapprehension.”

“Oh, Miss Avondale!”

“Then I took a more charitable view, and came to the conclusion that the first night he had been drinking.  But,” she added, with a faint smile at Randolph’s lugubrious face, “I apologize.  And you have had your revenge; for if I cut you on account of your smart clothes, you have tried to do me a kindness on account of my plain ones.”

“Oh, Miss Avondale,” burst out Randolph, “if you only knew how sorry and indignant I was at the bank—­when—­you know—­the other day”—­he stammered.  “I wanted to go with you to Mr. Revelstoke, you know, who had been so generous to me, and I know he would have been proud to befriend you until you heard from your friends.”

“And I am very glad you did nothing so foolish,” said the young lady seriously, “or”—­with a smile—­“I should have been still more aggravating to you when we met.  The bank was quite right.  Nor have I any pathetic story like yours.  Some years ago my little half-cousin whom you saw lost his mother and was put in my charge by his father, with a certain sum to my credit, to be expended for myself and the child.  I lived with an uncle, with whom, for some family reasons, the child’s father was not on good terms, and this money and the charge of the child were therefore intrusted entirely to me; perhaps, also, because Bobby and I were fond of each other and I was a friend of his mother.  The father was a shipmaster, always away on long voyages, and has been home but once in the three years I have had charge of his son.