CHAPTER TWELVE.
ON THE RIVER.
We left behind the painted buoy That tosses at the harbour mouth; And madly danced our heart with joy, As fast we fleeted to the south.
How fresh was every sight and sound On open main, on winding shore! We knew the merry world was round, And we might sail for evermore.
"Frank, what do you mean by behaving so unkindly to Minnie Clyde ?" was the opening salutation of little Miss Pimpernell to me, the same evening, when I called round again at the vicarage, like Telemachus, in search of consolation.
I was so utterly miserable and disheartened at the conviction that everything was over between Min and myself--at the sudden collapse of all my eager hopes and ardent longings--that I felt I must speak to somebody and unbosom myself; or else I should go out of my senses.
"_I_ behave unkindly to Miss Clyde!" I exclaimed, in astonishment at her thus addressing me, before I could get out a word as to why I had come to see her--"I--I--I--don't know what you mean, Miss Pimpernell ?" "You know, or ought to know very well, Frank, without my telling you," she rejoined; and there was a grave tone in her voice, for which I could not account.
However, the dear old lady did not leave me long in doubt.
She was never in the habit of "beating about the bush;" but always spoke out straight, plump and plain, to the point.
"Really, my boy," she continued, "I think there is no excuse for your acting so strangely to the poor little girl, after all your attentions and long intimacy!" "But, Miss Pimpernell," I commenced; however, she quickly interrupted me.
"`But me no buts,' Frank Lorton," she said, with more determination and severity than she had ever used to me since I had known her.

"I'm quite angry with you.

You have disappointed all my expectations, when I thought I knew your character so well, too! Learn, that there is no one I despise so much as a male flirt.

Oh, Frank! I did not think you had a grain of such little-mindedness in you! I believed you to be straightforward, and earnest, and true.

I'm sadly disappointed in you, my boy; sadly disappointed!" and she shook her head reproachfully.
It was very hard being attacked in this way, when I had come for consolation! I had thought myself to be the injured party, whose wounds would have been bound up, and oil and wine inpoured by the good Samaritan to whom I had always looked as my staunchest ally; yet, here she was, upbraiding me as a heartless deceiver, a role which I had never played in my life! I did not know what to make of it.
What was she driving at?
"I assure you, Miss Pimpernell," I said with all the earnestness which the circumstances really warranted, "that I have not behaved in any way, to my knowledge, of which you might be ashamed for my sake.