She favors me with a quick roguish glance, and laughs blithely.
"I don't know," turning back to her momentarily forgotten pastime. "Mr. Brookhouse has been very attentive, and for a long time we all thought him the favored one, until Dr. Bethel came, and since you appeared in Trafton. Ah! I'm afraid Adele is a bit of a flirt."
And astute Miss sixteen shoots me another mischievous glance, and poises her arrow with all the nonchalance of a veteran.
Again I glance in the direction taken by my hostess and her cavalier, but they have disappeared among the plentiful shrubbery.
I turn back to my roguish little pupil, now provokingly intent upon her archery practice.
Once more the arrow is fixed; she takes aim with much deliberation, and puts forth all her strength to the bending of the bow. Twang! whizz! the arrow speeds fast and far—and foul. It finds lodgment in a thicket of roses, that go clambering over a graceful trellis, full ten feet to the right of the target.
There is a shout of merriment. Mademoiselle throws down the bow with a little gesture of despair, and I hasten toward the trellis intent upon recapturing the missent arrow.
As I am about to thrust my hand in among the roses, I am startled by a voice from the opposite side; startled because the voice is that of my hostess, thrilling with intensest anger, and very near me.
"It has gone far enough! It has gone too far. It must stop now, or—"