"Come, Harriet, this is too bad," Julian exclaimed, smiling. "Why, I
shall have to quarrel with you, to prove that we're good friends."
"I wish you _would_ quarrel with me sometimes," said the girl,
laughing in a forced way. "You take all my bad-temper always just in
the same quiet way. I'd far rather you fell out with me. It's
treating me too like a child, as if it didn't matter how I went on,
and I wasn't anything to you."
Of late, Harriet had been getting much into the habit of this
ambiguous kind of remark when in her cousin's company. Julian
noticed it, and it made him a trifle uneasy. He attributed it,
however, to the girl's strangely irritable disposition, and never
failed to meet such outbreaks with increased warmth and kindness of
tone. To-day, Harriet's vagaries seemed to affect him somewhat
unusually. He became silent at times, and then tried to laugh away
the unpleasantness, but the laughter was not exactly spontaneous. At
length he brought back the conversation to the point from which it
had started, and asked if she had any serious intention of leaving
Mrs. Ogle.
"I'm tired of being ordered about by people!" Harriet exclaimed. "I
know I sha'n't put up with it much longer.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112