"You're a bold, rude boy, Clarence," she said, putting back her hair
quietly, and straightening the brim of her hat. "Heaven knows where
you learned manners!" and then, from a safer distance, with the same
critical look in her violet eyes, "I suppose you think mother would
allow THAT if she knew it?"

But Clarence, now completely subjugated, with the memory of the kiss
upon him and a heightened color, protested that he only wanted to make
their intercourse less constrained, and to have their relations, even
their engagement, recognized by her parents; still he would take her
advice. Only there was always the danger that if they were discovered
she would be sent back to the convent all the same, and his banishment,
instead of being the probation of a few years, would be a perpetual
separation.

"We could always run away, Clarence," responded the young girl calmly.
"There's nothing the matter with THAT."

Clarence was startled. The idea of desolating the sad, proud, handsome
Mrs. Peyton, whom he worshiped, and her kind husband, whom he was just
about to serve, was so grotesque and confusing, that he said hopelessly,
"Yes."

"Of course," she continued, with the same odd affectation of coyness,
which was, however, distinctly uncalled for, as she eyed him from under
her broad hat, "you needn't come with me unless you like. I can run away
by myself,--if I want to! I've thought of it before. One can't stand
everything!"

"But, Susy," said Clarence, with a swift remorseful recollection of her