seventy-four;--and indeed (so are the generations linked), her father
had been a middie with Nelson at Trafalgar, and a lieutenant aboard the
_Bellerophon_ during that ship's historic voyage to St. Helena;--but
she confronted you with the lively eyes, the firm cheeks, the fresh
complexion, the erect and active carriage, of a well-preserved woman of
sixty; and in her plentiful light-brown hair there was scarcely a
thread of grey. She stepped trippingly across the grass, swinging a
malacca walking-stick, with a silver crook-handle.

"He has arrived. I 've seen him."

So her voice broke in upon Susanna's musings; and Susanna started, and
got up. She was wearing a muslin frock to-day, white, with a pattern
of flowers in mauve; and she was without a hat, so that one could see
how her fine black hair grew low about her brow, and thence swept away
in loose full billows, and little crinkling over-waves, to where it
drooped in a rich mass behind. But as she stood, awaiting Miss
Sandus's approach, her face was pale, and her eyes were wide open and
dark, as if with fright.

"Dear me, child. Did I startle you? I 'm so sorry," said Miss Sandus,
coming up to her. "Yes, Don Antonio has arrived. I saw him as he
disembarked at his native railway-station. I was ordering a book at
Smith's. And such luggage, my dear. Boxes and bags, bags and boxes,
till you could n't count them; and all of stout brown leather--so nice
and manny. He looks nice and manny himself: tall, with nice manny
clothes, and nice eyes, and a nice brown skin; and with a nose, my
dear, a nose like Julius Caesar's. Well, you 'll meet him on Sunday,
at your Papistical place of worship,--if he does n't call before. I
daresay he 'll think himself obliged to."

"Oh, Fairy Godmother," gasped Susanna, faintly; "feel."

She took Miss Sandus's hand, and pressed it against her side.

"Feel how my heart is beating."

"Mercy!" exclaimed Miss Sandus.

IV

"Hang it all, how she sticks in one's mind," said Anthony, with
impatience. "Am I returning to my cubhood, that the mere vision of a
woman should take possession of me like this?"

And then, having, I suppose, weighed the question, "It's the weather," he
decided. "Yes--I 'll bet you ten-and-sixpence that it's nothing more
than just this silly, sentimental, languorous June weather."

He was seated in a shaded corner of his garden, where the day was
murmurous with the humming of bees, and the mingle