boy again because somebody else is a girl?"

"I should be frightened of you if you lived here always," returned
Cressy with invincible naivete; "but perhaps then you wouldn't know so
much."

Stacey simply accepted this as a compliment. "And there's Masters," he
said insinuatingly.

"Not Joe?" said Cressy with a low laugh, turning her eyes to the door.

"Yes," said Stacey with a quick, uneasy smile. "Ah! I see we mustn't
drop HIM. Is he out THERE?" he added, trying to follow the direction of
her eyes.

But the young girl kept her face studiously averted. "Is that all?" she
asked after a pause.

"Well--there's that solemn school-master, who cut me out of the waltz
with you--that Mr. Ford."

Had he been a perfectly cool and impartial observer he would have seen
the slight tremor cross Cressy's soft eyelids even in profile, followed
by that momentary arrest of her whole face, mouth, dimples, and eyes,
which had overtaken it the night the master entered the ball-room. But
he was neither, and it passed quickly and unnoticed. Her usual lithe but
languid play of expression and color came back, and she turned her head
lazily towards the speaker. "There's Paw coming. I suppose you wouldn't
mind giving me a sample of your style of arbitrating with him, before
you try it on me?"