"Then," said Stella, with her rare, musical laugh, "as it's very wicked to hate anyone, and I ought to help you to be good, the best thing I can do is to like Mr. Adelstone."
"Heaven forbid!" he said, so earnestly, so passionately, that Stella started.
"You are a wicked boy!" she said, with a smile.
"I am," he said, gravely, and his lips quivered. "But if anything could make me better it would be living near you. You are not offended?"
"Not a bit," laughed Stella; "but I shall be directly, so you had better go to bed. Your room is quite ready, and you look tired. Good-night," and she gave him her hand.
He too bent over it, but how differently to Jasper! and he touched it reverently with his lips.
"Good-night," he said; "say good-night to my father for me," and he went out.
[CHAPTER XX.]
One hears of the devotion of a dog to its master, the love of a horse for its rider; such devotion, such love Stella received from the boy Frank. He was a very singular boy, and strange; he soon lost the air of melancholy and sadness which hung about him on the first night of his arrival, and became happier and sometimes even merry; there was always a certain kind of reserve about him.