how you do get abused! But I will tell Mr. Farquhar I will not let him interfere with me. If I do what papa bids me, no one has a right to notice whether I do it willingly or not." So then she tried to defy Mr. Farquhar, by doing and saying things that she knew he would disapprove. She went so far that he was seriously grieved, and did not even remonstrate and "lecture," and then she was disappointed and irritated; for, somehow, with all her indignation at interference, she liked to be lectured by him; not that she was aware of this liking of hers, but still it would have been more pleasant to be scolded than so quietly passed over. Her two little sisters, with their wide-awake eyes, had long ago put things together, and conjectured. Every day they had some fresh mystery together, to be imparted in garden walks and whispered talks. "Lizzie, did you see how the tears came into Mimie's eyes when Mr. Farquhar looked so displeased when she said good people were always dull? I think she's in love." Mary said the last words with grave emphasis, and felt like an oracle of twelve years of age. "I don't," said Lizzie. "I know I cry often enough when papa is cross, and I'm not in love with him." "Yes! but you don't look as Mimie did." "Don't call her Mimie--you know papa does not like it?" "Yes; but there are so many things papa does not like I can never remember them all. Never mind about that; but listen to something I've got to tell you, if you'll never, never tell." "No, indeed I won't, Mary. What is it?" "Not to Mrs. Denbigh?" "No, not even to Mrs. Denbigh." "Well, then, the other day--last Friday, Mimie----" "Jemima!" interrupted the more conscientious Elizabeth. "Jemima, if it must be so," jerked out Mary, "sent me to her desk for an envelope, and what do you. think I saw?" "What?" asked Elizabeth, expecting nothing else than a red-hot Valentine, signed Walter Farquhar, pro Bradshaw, Farquhar, & Co., in full. "Why, a piece of paper, with dull-looking lines upon it, just like the scientific dialogues; and I remember all about it. It was once when Mr.
Farquhar had been telling us that a bullet does not go in a straight line, but in a something curve, and he drew some lines on a piece of paper; and Mimie----" "Jemima!" put in Elizabeth. "Well, well! She had treasured it up, and written in corner, 'W. F., April 3rd.' Now, that's rather like love, is not it? For Jemima hates useful information just as much as I do, and that's saying a great deal; and yet she had kept this paper, and dated it." "If that's all, I know Dick keeps a paper with Miss Benson's name written on it, and yet he's not in love with her; and perhaps Jemima may like Mr.
Farquhar, and he may not like her. It seems such a little while since her hair was turned up, and he has always been a grave, middle-aged man ever since I can recollect; and then, have you never noticed how often he finds fault with her--almost lectures her?" "To be sure," said Mary; " but he may be in love, for all that. Just think how often papa lectures mamma; and yet, of course, they're in love with each other." "Well! we shall see," said Elizabeth. Poor Jemima little thought of the four sharp eyes that watched her daily course while she sat alone, as she fancied, with her secret in her own room. For, in a passionate fit of grieving, at the impatient, hasty temper which had made her so seriously displease Mr. Farquhar that he had gone away without remonstrance, without more leave-taking than a distant bow, she had begun to suspect that, rather than not be noticed at all by him, rather than be an object of indifference to him--oh! far rather would she be an object of anger and upbraiding; and the thoughts that followed this confession to herself stunned and bewildered her; and for once that they made her dizzy with hope, ten times they made her sick with fear. For an instant she planned to become and to be all he could wish her; to change her very nature for him. And then a great gush of pride came over her, and she set her teeth tight together, and determined that he should either love her as she was or not at all. Unless he could take her with all her faults, she would not care for his regard; "love" was too noble a word to call such cold, calculating feeling as his must be, who went about with a pattern idea in his mind, trying to find a wife to match. Besides, there was something degrading, Jemima thought, in trying to alter herself to gain the love of any human creature. And yet, if he did not care for her, if this late indifference were to last, what a great shroud was drawn over life! Could she bear it? From the agony she dared not look at, but which she was going to risk encountering, she was aroused by the presence of her mother. "Jemima! your father wants to speak to you in the dining-room." "What for?" asked the girl. "Oh! he is fidgeted by something Mr. Farquhar said to me and which I repeated.