"Miss Lottie," said De Forrest, approaching her humbly.
She raised her hand deprecatingly.
"Really, Miss Lottie," he persisted, "I would have gone if you had wished me to."
"Hark!" she said, in a low tone. "Can you heal them?"
Lynx-eyed Bel, standing unnoticed in the shadow, had witnessed and comprehended the scene more fully than the Others, and speedily brought Lottie to her senses by whispering in her ear: "Come, don't make a goose of yourself. If Mr. Hemstead is your 'knight,' he has not gone to fight a dragon, but to row a boat, and rescue a fisherman in all probability. Your hair is down and blowing about your eyes, and you look like a guy generally."
Even Lottie, in her highly-wrought state, was not proof against such bald prose as this; and she turned and hastened to her room.
Bel followed, proposing now, at last, to open Lottie's eyes to her folly. Her first words of wisdom were, as Lottie, with wet eyes, stood binding up her hair, "What a fool you are beginning to make of yourself over this Western student!"
"Hush!" said Lottie, imperiously.
"There it is again. You haven't been yourself since he came. If your mother knew what was going on—"
"Bel," said Lottie, in a tone that quite startled that nervous young lady, "do you value my friendship at all?"