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Rh vanish from his sight, and run fleetly down the coppice. I hear his voice calling "Nell! Nell!" after me, and in another minute he has overtaken me, and stands in my path.

"Won't you speak to me, Nell?" he asks, rather blown and out of breath with his exertions.

"Can't stop now," I say, indistinctly, turning a scarlet countenance over my shoulder; "somebody is calling me."

"Nobody is calling you!" he says, quickly; "are you angry with me, Nell?"

"Angry!" I repeat, turning round a face which is, I think, assuming its normal tint, "why should I be angry?"

"Come back into the coppice for a little while then," he says; "you can't be going in yet, it is only seven o'clock."

For a moment I hesitate. I am ashamed to look him in the face, but will it not be intolerably dull all alone in the empty house yonder? I turn and walk beside him. "Do you know," he says, "that I have been looking out for you every day, and all day for the last fortnight, but I have never caught a single glimpse of you?"

"For the best of all reasons," I answer; "did you not know I was in punishment?"

"No!" he replies, indignantly. "What a shame! and pray whose doing was that?"

"There is only one person in the world who has the power to make us miserable," I say, "and you know who that is."

"But you have not been locked up," he says, looking puzzled, "for one day I was here with Jack, and I am certain 1 saw you in the distance, and went in hot pursuit, but you had vanished. When I got back I asked Jack why you ran away, and how it was I never saw you now, and he said he didn't know."

"Good boy!" I say, laughing, "he would not betray me. It is