"No; there is the chief of police driving by in that buggy."
The young criminal turned and gave him a cool stare.
"How dare you?" she said, wrathfully.
"Madam, one of the first points given in my school was never to play faint heart. Act suspicious, and you'll be suspected. If you have no further commands I have the honour to wish you good evening," and bowing like an embryo Chesterfield, he mounted his wheel, and rode away as deliberately as he had come.
Miss Gastonguay retraced her steps. The warm beauty of the approaching night had no power to penetrate her soul. The enchanting scene of lawn and garden, stately house and river, was as unattractive to her as a desert would have been. Nothing relieved the unspeakable desolation of her heart; nothing lifted the heavy shadow from her brow.
Chelda, too, was moping. What had come to the girl? and she paused beside the reclining chair in which she had been sitting motionless for two hours.
"Chelda, are you ill?"
"No, aunt, I am not."
"You act ill. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Rossignol oppresses me. Would you care to go to Europe?"