"Kitty, are you going to tell me, before I go away, what made you feel so badly the day I came and found you in the wood?"
Again Kitty's face glowed beneath his gaze, and her bright black eyes drooped in rare confusion. She was about to answer hastily and coldly, but found herself checked by a softer impulse. Why should she not tell him somewhat of the trouble at her heart, and so win at least sympathy and pity, if nothing more? So she said in a low voice,—
"No one cares much for me, I think."
"No one?-not your brother?"
Kitty raised her eyes to the far vista point where Karl and Dora vanished into the forest, their horses moving close to each other's side, and then brought them back to the face of her companion. The look was eloquent, and he said,—
"Yes; but by and by, perhaps, he will not be so engrossed."
The young girl raised her head with a superb gesture.
"To wait for by and by, when some one else has done with him, is not my idea of love."
Mr. Brown looked at her more attentively, and smiled.
"I think the day will come when some man will love you first and best of all," said he, in a tone, not of flattery, but of honest admiration, which fell like sunlight upon the waste places of poor Kitty's heart.