bargain."

"I'm sure he isn't anything to me," said Kate. "Why, he's not quite
seventeen years old yet!"

"Poor boy! What a shame to dispose of him so soon. We'll let him
off for a year or two; won't we, Miss Coverdale? But as there seems
by acknowledgment to be one beau with unappropriated services--"

"I'm sure I have appropriated nobody," said Patty, "and didn't
intend."

"Godfrey, then, is the only knight whose services are claimed," said
Miss Holmes, looking at Bessy. Bessy made no immediate answer with
either her eyes or tongue; but when the Coverdales were gone, she
took her new friend to task.

"How can you fill those young girls' heads with such nonsense?"

"Nature has done that, my dear."

"But nature should be trained; should it not? You will make them
think that those foolish boys are in love with them."

"The foolish boys, as you call them, will look after that
themselves. It seems to me that the foolish boys know what they are
about better than some of their elders." And then, after a moment's
pause, she added, "As for my brother, I have no patience with him."

"Pray do not discuss your brother," said Bessy. "And, Bella, unless