"Oh! for goodness sake, don't think of anything of the kind!" cried the startled Harriet; "I—I—I shall be better in a minute. It's only a spasm or something—it's nothing that any one—can—help me—with!"
"I know what it is," remarked Mattie, after a moment's reflection.
"You—you do, Mattie!"
"It's the wind," was the matter-of-fact reply; "you've been eating a heap of nasty buns, and then come up here without your supper—and it's brought on spasms, as you say."
"How ridiculous you are, child!" said this woman of seventeen, parting her fair hair back from her face, and making an effort to subdue her agitation; "don't you see that I am very, very miserable!"
"In earnest?"
"Are people ever really, truly miserable in fun, Mattie?" was the sharp rejoinder.
"Not truly miserable, I should fancy. But you—oh! Miss Harriet, you miserable, at your age!"
"Yes—it's a fact."
"Perhaps you have been robbed," suggested the curious Mattie; "I know that they used to send them out from Kent Street to hang about the railway stations. Never mind, Miss Harriet, I have been earning money, lately; and if you don't want your father to know how careless you have been——"