“But we aren’t really, for all that,” said the girl, looking away.  “Well, now you’ve got somebody else to take you up, I know very well I shall see less of you.  You’ll be making excuses to get out of the rides when the summer comes again.”

“Pray don’t say or think anything of the kind, Harriet,” urged Julian with feeling.  “I should not think of letting anything put a stop to our picnics.  It will soon be getting warm enough to think of the river, won’t it?  And then, if you would like it, there is no reason why my friend shouldn’t come with us, sometimes.”

“Oh, nonsense!  Why, you’d be ashamed to let him know me.”

“Ashamed!  How can you possibly think so?  But you don’t mean it; you are joking.”

“I’m sure I’m not.  I should make mistakes in talking, and all sorts of things.  You don’t think much of me, as it is, and that would make you like me worse still.”

She tossed her head nervously, and swung her arms with the awkward restlessness which always denoted some strong feeling in her.

“Come, Harriet, this is too bad,” Julian exclaimed, smiling.  “Why, I shall have to quarrel with you, to prove that we’re good friends.”

“I wish you would quarrel with me sometimes,” said the girl, laughing in a forced way.  “You take all my bad-temper always just in the same quiet way.  I’d far rather you fell out with me.  It’s treating me too like a child, as if it didn’t matter how I went on, and I wasn’t anything to you.”

Of late, Harriet had been getting much into the habit of this ambiguous kind of remark when in her cousin’s company.  Julian noticed it, and it made him a trifle uneasy.  He attributed it, however, to the girl’s strangely irritable disposition, and never failed to meet such outbreaks with increased warmth and kindness of tone.  To-day, Harriet’s vagaries seemed to affect him somewhat unusually.  He became silent at times, and then tried to laugh away the unpleasantness, but the laughter was not exactly spontaneous.  At length he brought back the conversation to the point from which it had started, and asked if she had any serious intention of leaving Mrs. Ogle.

“I’m tired of being ordered about by people!” Harriet exclaimed.  “I know I sha’n’t put up with it much longer.  I only wish I’d a few pounds to start a shop for myself.”

“I heartily wish I had the money to give you,” was Julian’s reply.

“Don’t you save anything at all?” asked his cousin, with affected indifference.

“A little; very little.  At all events, I think we shall be able to have our week at the seaside when the time comes.  Have you thought where you’d like to go to?”

“No; I haven’t thought anything about it.  What time shall you get back home to-night?”

“Rather late, I dare say.  We sit talking and forget the time.  It may be after twelve o’clock.”

Harriet became silent again.  They reached Hyde Park, and joined the crowds of people going in all directions about the walks.  Harriet had always a number of ill-natured comments to make on the dress and general appearance of people they passed.  Julian smiled, but with no genuine pleasure.  As always, he did his best to lead the girl’s thoughts away from their incessant object, hers, elf.