Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/231

Rh learning to flirt with the students. It makes me feel like knocking these country fellows down now whenever I see them looking at her, and I don't know what I 'd do with her at college."

"Break a dozen fellow's heads every term, I expect, old boy,—what with the ones that made love to her, and the ones that chaffed you about her," laughed I.

"Chaffed me about Ally!" exclaimed Jim. "What do you mean, Will? Who ever heard of a man being chaffed about his sister?"

"Nobody," said I satirically; "but Ally happens not to be your sister."

"Will, it 's just the same as if my father and mother had adopted her instead of me; exactly the same. She is my sister, I tell you," said Jim emphatically.

"There is n't any same as brother about kisses," came into my head, but I forebore to quote the words. My heart was already sorer than I knew how to explain, by reason of this little maiden's exclusive love for her brother Jim.

The dreaded day came swiftly, as only dreaded days can; it was a sunny May morning. To go away by stage from a home one sorrows to leave is infinitely harder than to go in any other way. There is such a mockery of good cheer, of a pleasure drive, in the prancing of the horses eager to be off. There is such a refinement of cruelty in the Composure of the driver, waiting whip in hand for