y long at the window; it reminded me too
much of the pleasant evenings one short week ago. I felt weary and
desponding, and drowsy with uncertainty and unhappiness, so I was in
the act of shutting down the window, when I saw a dark figure moving
rapidly across the snow in the direction of the house. Not for an
instant did I mistake it for a deer, or a gamekeeper, or a poacher, or
a housebreaker. From the moment I set eyes on it, something told me it
must be Frank Lovell; and though I shrunk back that he might not see
me, I watched him with painful anxiety and a beating heart. He seemed
to know his way quite well. He came straight to the moat, felt his way
cautiously for a step or two, and finding the ice would bear him,
crossed at once, and took up a position under my window, not twenty
feet from where I was standing.

He must have seen my shadow across the candle-light, for he whispered
my name.

"Miss Coventry--Kate! Only one word." What could I do? Poor fellow! he
had walked all that distance in the cold and the snow only for one
word--and this was the man I had been doubting and misjudging all day!
Why, of course, though I know it was very wrong and very improper and
all that, of course I spoke to him, and listened to what he had to
say, and carried on a long conversation, the effect of which was
somewhat ludicrous, in consequence of the distance between the
parties, question and answer requiring to be _shouted_, as it were, in
a whisper. The night too was clouding over, more snow was falling, and
it was getting so dark I could not see Frank, even at the distance of
twelve or fourteen feet, and it could not have been much more between
my bedroom window and the ground.

"Did you get my note?" said he with sundry complimentary expressions.

"Here's the answer," was my practical reply, as I dropped my own
missive into the darkness.

I know he caught it, because--because--_I heard him kiss it_. At that
moment I was aware of a step in the passage, a hand on my door. Down
went my window in a twinkling, out went my candles--the wick of the
second one would keep glimmering like a light far off at sea--and in
came Aunt Horsingham, clad in flannel attire, with a wondrous
head-dress, the like of which I have never beheld before or since,
just as I popped into bed, and buried myself beneath the clothes as if
I had been asleep for hours.

"Where can it be, Kate?" said my aunt. "I have been in every room
along the passage