"They say the best way to hold them," he observed, "is by the scruff of
the neck."

Beholding his wounds, suffered in her cause, she gave a pitying cry that
made his heart leap with the richness and sweetness of it. Catching the
kitten from him, she dropped it to the ground in such wise as to prove
nature's foresight most kind in cushioning the feet of cats.

"Ah! I didn't want it that much!"

"A cat in the hand is worth two nightingales in the bush," he said boldly,
and laughed. "I would shed more blood than that!"

Miss Betty blushed like a southern dawn, and started back from him. From
the convent but yesterday--and she had taken a man's hand in both of hers!

It was to this tableau that the lady in blue entered, following the hunt
through the gates, where she stopped with a discomposed countenance. At
once, however, she advanced, and with a cry of greeting, enveloped Miss
Betty in a brief embrace, to the relief of the latter's confusion. It was
Fanchon Bareaud, now two years emancipated from St. Mary's, and far gone
in taffeta. With her lustreful light hair, absent blue eyes, and her
gentle voice, as small and pretty as her face and figure, it was not too
difficult to justify Crailey Gray's characterization of her as one of
those winsome baggages who had made an air of feminine helplessness the
fashion of the day.

It is a wicked thing that some women should kiss when a man is by; in the
present instance the gentleman became somewhat faint.