k for her to see
the expression of his face.

"Did you hurt yourself?" asked Celeste at length. "Let me help you up!
We are to help each other now, you know."

Quimby groaned.

"Oh, misery!" he gasped. "This--my destiny is too much for me! Oh! the
evil deeds of darkness! Listen to me, I implore you! It is all a
mistake! I thought--"

"Of course it was a mistake! You did not suppose I thought you fell
purposely, did you, dear?" quickly interrupted Celeste, blindly or
willfully misunderstanding--who shall say which? "But please get up, Cyn
may come."

At this Quimby scrambled to his feet with startling suddenness, and
exclaiming hastily,

"I will--I will write and tell you all--_all!_ I have an engagement now
with a friend just around the corner!" he rushed from the room, and
would have flown, but the pertinacious Celeste had followed, and just as
he reached the outside hall, regardless of the publicity, flung herself
around his neck, this time without bringing him to the ground.

"It is not necessary to write!" she cried. "Pray, do not take such a
trifle so much to heart. Remember I am yours, and--"

Another voice from the stairs just above the pair, interrupted her. It
was the voice of Fishblate _pere_, and it said,

"Hugging! Marry her!"

"I--I--will!" wailed the now alarmed Quimby, as Celeste blushingly
withdrew from her embrace of him. "I--I will see you to-morrow if I--if
I live!" and striking his forehead with his hand, he burst away, bounded
frantically down the stairs and fled, ejaculating,

"I knew it! I had a presentiment from my youth!"

"Excuse his eccentricity, Pa!" Celeste said. "He loves me _so_ much, poor
fellow!"

"Humph! Get enough of _that!_" he growled, with contempt.

"And he has a nice little property!" added Celeste, as they went up
stairs.

"Property is the thing!" Fishblate _pere_ said, with undisguised
plainness.

Nattie emerged from her retreat on the hasty exit of Quimby and Celeste,
so full of regret for the flight that had proved so disastrous to him,
that the ludicrous part of the scene just enacted was forgotten.

"Poor Quimby!" she thought, remorsefully. "What a dreadful fix he is in!
I hope he will get out of it; and I am so sorry for my share in it! How
strange it would be if he should, as he once said, marry the wrong
woman, after all!"

CHAPTER XIV.

QUIMBY ACCEPTS THE SITUATION.

When Quimby rushed out into the street, it was with some wild and