"Well, dear old girl, it is just this--Frank Muller has been here to ask
me to marry him."

"Oh," said Jess, with a sigh of relief. So that was all? She felt as
though a ton-weight had been lifted from her heart. She had expected
this bit of news for some time.

"He wanted me to marry him, and when I said I would not, he behaved
like--like----"

"Like a Boer," suggested Jess.

"Like a _brute_," went on Bessie with emphasis.

"So you don't care for Frank Muller?"

"Care for him! I loathe the man. You don't know how I loathe him, with
his handsome bad face and his cruel eyes. I always loathed him, and now
I hate him too. But I will tell you all about it;" and she did, with
many feminine comments and interpolations.

Jess sat quite still, and waited till she had finished.

"Well, dear," she said at last, "you are not going to marry him, and so
there is an end of it. You can't detest the man more than I do. I have
watched him for years," she went on, with rising anger, "and I tell you
that Frank Muller is a liar and a traitor. That man would betray his own
father if he thought it to his interest to do so. He hates uncle--I am
sure he does, although he pretends to be so fond of him. I am certain