marriage was the scourge of music-shops--it
carries off their young women at such a rate."

"She told you that? It was in one of your long talks together in
London? Patty and you got on capitally together. It was very natural
she shouldn't care much for men like Mr. Dally afterwards."

Hilliard puzzled over this remark, and was on the point of making some
impatient reply, but discretion restrained him. He turned to Eve's own
affairs, questioned her closely about her life in the tradesman's
house, and so their conversation followed a smoother course. Presently,
half in jest, Hilliard mentioned Narramore's building projects.

"But who knows? It _might_ come to something of importance for me. In
two or three years, if all goes well, such a thing might possibly give
me a start."

A singular solemnity had settled upon Eve's countenance. She spoke not
a word, and seemed unaccountably ill at ease.

"Do you think I am in the clouds?" said Hilliard.

"Oh, no! Why shouldn't you get on--as other men do?"

But she would not dwell upon the hope, and Hilliard, not a little
vexed, again became silent.

Her next visit was after a lapse of three weeks. She had again been
suffering from a slight illness, and her pallor alarmed Hilliard. Again
she began with talk of Patty Ringrose.

"Do you know, there's really a chance that we may see her before long!
She'll have a holiday at Easter, from the Thursday night to Monday
night, and I have all but got her to promise that she'll come over
here. Wouldn't it be fun to let her see the Black Country? You remember
her talk about it. I could get her a room, and if it's at all bearable
weather, we would all have a day somewhere. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Yes; but I should greatly prefer a day with you alone."

"Oh, of course, the time is coming for that, Would you let us come here
one day?"

With a persistence not to be mistaken Eve avoided all intimate topics;
at the same time her manner grew more cordial. Through February and
March, she decidedly improved in health. Hilliard saw her seldom, but
she wrote frequent letters, and their note was as that of her
conversation, lively, all but sportive. Once again she had become a
mystery to her lover; he pondered over her very much as in the days
when they were newly acquainted. Of one thing he felt but too well
assured. She did not love him as he desired to be loved. Constant she
might be, but it was the constancy of a woman unaffected wit