k. Our house is nearly ready for us, and even
Julia's wedding-dress and veil are bought."

"There is not a house you enter," said Johanna, solemnly, "where they
are not preparing a wedding-present for Julia and you. There has not
been a marriage in your district, among ourselves, for nine years. It is
as public as a royal marriage."

"It must go on," I answered, with the calmness of despair. "I am the
most good-for-nothing scoundrel in Guernsey to fall in love with my
patient. You need not tell me so, Johanna. And yet, if I could think
that Olivia loved me, I would not change with the happiest man alive."

"What is her name?" asked Johanna.

"One of the Olliviers," answered Captain Carey; "but what Olliviers she
belongs to, I don't know. She is one of the prettiest creatures I ever
saw."

"An Ollivier!" exclaimed Johanna, in her severest accents. "Martin, what
_are_ you thinking of?"

"Her Christian name is Olivia," I said, hastily; "she does not belong to
the Olliviers at all. It was Tardif's mistake, and very natural. She was
born in Australia, I believe."

"Of a good family, I hope?" asked Johanna. "There are some persons it
would be a disgrace to you to love. What is her other name?"

"I don't know," I answered, reluctantly but distinctly.

Johanna turned her face full upon me now--a face more agitated than I
had ever seen it. There was no use in trying to keep back any part of my
serious delinquency, so I resolved to make a clean breast of it.

"I know very little about her," I said--"that is, about her history; as
for herself, she is the sweetest, dearest, loveliest girl in the whole
world to me. If I were free, and she loved me, I should not know what
else to wish for. All I know is, that she has run away from her people;
why, I have no more idea than you have, or who they are, or where they
live; and she has been living in Tardif's cottage since last October. It
is an infatuation, do you say? So it is, I dare say. It is an
infatuation; and I don't know that I shall ever shake it off."

"What is she like?" asked Johanna. "Is she very merry and bright?"

"I never saw her laugh," I said.

"Very melancholy and sad, then?"

"I never saw her weep," I said.

"What is it then, Martin?" she asked, earnestly.

"I cannot tell what it is," I answered. "Everything she does and says
has a charm for me that I could never describe. With her for my wife I
should be more happy than I ever was; with any one else