hope. But think of the journey!" By this
time Lizzie had stayed out ten days of her visit.

One day Miss Cooper came in from a walk, radiant with tidings. Her face,
as I have observed, wore a continual smile, being dimpled and punctured
all over with merriment,--so that, when an unusual cheerfulness was
super-diffused, it resembled a tempestuous little pool into which a
great stone has been cast.

"Guess who's come," said she, going up to the piano, which Lizzie was
carelessly fingering, and putting her hands on the young girl's
shoulders. "Just guess!"

Lizzie looked up.

"Jack," she half gasped.

"Oh, dear, no, not that! How stupid of me! I mean Mr. Bruce, your
Leatherborough admirer."

"Mr. Bruce! Mr. Bruce!" said Lizzie. "Really?"

"True as I live. He's come to bring his sister to the Water-Cure. I met
them at the post-office."

Lizzie felt a strange sensation of good news. Her finger-tips were on
fire. She was deaf to her companion's rattling chronicle. She broke into
the midst of it with a fragment of some triumphant, jubilant melody. The
keys rang beneath her flashing hands. And then she suddenly stopped, and
Miss Cooper, who was taking off her bonnet at the mirror, saw that her
face was covered with a burning flush.

That evening, Mr. Bruce presented himself at Doctor Cooper's, with whom
he had a slight acquaintance. To Lizzie he was infinitely courteous and
tender. He assured her, in very pretty terms, of his profound sympathy
with her in her cousin's danger,--her cousin he still called him,--and
it seemed to Lizzie that until that moment no one had begun to be kind.
And then he began to rebuke her, playfully and in excellent taste, for
her pale cheeks.

"Isn't it dreadful?" said Miss Cooper. "She looks like a ghost. I guess
she's in love."

"He must be a good-for-nothing lover to make his mistress look so sad.
If I were you, I'd give him up, Miss Crowe."

"I didn't know I looked sad," said Lizzie.

"You don't now," said Miss Cooper. "You're smiling and blushing. A'n't
she blushing, Mr. Bruce?"

"I think Miss Crowe has no more than her natural color," said Bruce,
dropping his eye-glass. "What have you been doing all this while since
we parted?"

"All this while? it's only six weeks. I don't know. Nothing. What have
you?"

"I've been doing nothing, too. It's hard work."

"Have you been to any more parties?"

"Not one."

"Any more sleigh-rides?"

"Yes. I took one more dreary drive all