ress down-stairs she
has cleared the cloud from his brow.

It was done by a confiding caressing clasp on his arm, and the few words,
'Now for old friends! How charming little Phoebe looks!'

How different were his massive brow and deep-set eyes without their usual
load, and how sweet his gratified smile!

'Where have you been, you Robin? If I had not passed you in the Park, I
should never have guessed there was such a bird in London. I began to
change my mind, like Christiana--"I thought Robins were harmless and
gentle birds, wont to hop about men's doors, and feed on crumbs, and
such-like harmless food."'

'And have you seen me eating worms?'

'I've not seen you at all.'

'I did not think you had leisure--I did not believe I should be welcome.'

'The cruellest cut of all! positive irony--'

'No, indeed! I am not so conceited as--'

'As what?'

'As to suppose you could want me.'

'And there was I longing to hear about Phoebe! If you had only come, I
could have contrived her going to the _Zauberflote_ with us last night,
but I didn't know the length of her tether.'

'I did not know you were so kind.'

'Be kinder yourself another time. Don't I know how I have been torn to
pieces at Hiltonbury, without a friend to say one word for the poor
little morsel!' she said, piteously.

He was impelled to an eager 'No, no!' but recalling facts, he modified
his reply into, 'Friends enough, but very anxious!'

'There, I knew none of you trusted me,' she said, pretending to pout.

'When play is so like earnest--'

'Slow people are taken in! That's the fun! I like to show that I can
walk alone sometimes, and not be snatched up the moment I pop my head
from under my leading-strings.'

Her pretty gay toss of the head prevented Robert from thinking whether
woman is meant to be without leading-strings.

'And it was to avoid countenancing my vagaries that you stayed away?' she
said, with a look of injured innocence.

'I was very much occupied,' answered Robert, feeling himself in the
wrong.

'That horrid office! You aren't thinking of becoming a Clarence, to
drown yourself in brandy--that would never do.'

'No, I have given up all thoughts of that!'

'You _thought_, you wretched Redbreast! I _thought_ you knew better.'

'So I ought,' said Robert, gravely, 'but my father wished me to make the
experiment, and I must own, that before I looked into the details, there
were considerations which--which--'