tion of
butterflies and beetles she showed me is most creditable."

"And it is only natural that, situated as she is, a prisoner in these
wilds, she should be much attracted by the companionship of a gentleman
of similar tastes, and of wide experience and knowledge."

"Oh, nonsense, nonsense!" said Murray, fidgeting. "She has been very
patient and kind of an evening in listening to me, though I am afraid I
have often bored her terribly with my long-winded twaddle about
ornithology and botany."

"I can vouch for it you have not, and also that you have caused great
disappointment when you have not come and joined us."

"Oh, fancy, my dear sir," said Murray, tugging at his great brown beard,
and colouring like a girl; "your imagination."

"It is her father's, her mother's, the Greigs' and my wife's imagination
too; and this experiment of hers--commenced directly after you had been
telling us all how difficult you found it with your big fingers to
manipulate the tiny sun-birds--confirms what we thought."

"My dear sir, what nonsense!" cried Murray, sweeping a bird-skin off the
table in his confusion, as he snatched up his pipe, lit it, and began to
smoke. "I talked like that because I wanted that idle young scamp, Ned,
to devote his fingers to the task. I had not the most remote idea that
it would make a young lady commence such an uncongenial pursuit."

"Straws show which way the wind blows."

"Look here, sir," cried Murray, jumping up, and making the bamboo floor
creak as he strode up and down. "I am not such a fool or so blind as
not to comprehend what you mean. Miss Amy Barnes is a very sweet,
amiable young lady."

"Far more so than you think," said Mr Braine, warmly. "She is a good
daughter--a dear girl, whom I love as well as if she were my own child.
I shall never forget the way in which she devoted herself to my boy when
he came out here, still weak, and a perfect skeleton, and it is my
tender affection for the girl that makes me speak as I do."

"Then, then--oh, I am very sorry--very sorry indeed," cried Murray. "I
wish to goodness I had never come. It is nonsense, madness, impossible.
I am nearly forty--that is over four and thirty. I am a confirmed
bachelor, and I would not be so idiotically conceited as to imagine,
sir, that the young lady could have even a passing fancy for such a
dry-as-dust student as myself. I tell you honestly, sir, I have never
once spoken to the lady but as a gentlema