"Why isn't this a good chance?" she thought. "He is certainly a smart
man. Horrid as he looks, he knows lots. May be he could tell me how to
find out."

She began in her airiest manner: "Oh, Mr. Bott, what a wonderful gift
you have got! How you must look down on us poor mortals!"

Bott grew spotted, and stammered:

"Far from it, Miss Matchin. I couldn't look down on you."

"Oh, you are flattering. That's not right, because I believe every word
you say--and that ain't true."

She rattled recklessly on in the same light tone.

"I'm going to ask you something very particular. I don't know who can
tell me, if you can't. How can a young lady find out whether a young
gentleman is in love with her or not? Now, tell me the truth this
time," she said with a nervous titter, "for it's very important."

This question from any one else would not have disconcerted Bott in the
least. Queries as absurd had frequently been put to him in perfect good
faith, and answered with ready and impudent ignorance. But, at those
giggling words of Maud Matchin, he turned livid and purple, and his
breath came heavily. There was room for but one thought in that narrow
heart and brain. He had long cherished a rather cowardly fondness for
Maud, and now that this question was put to him by the agitated girl,
his vanity would not suffer him to imagine that any one but himself was