disadvantageous to you, and very trying to other people!"

He takes this severe set-down in silence.

The trees that surround the garden are slowly darkening. The shadows
that intervene between the round masses of the sycamore-leaves deepen,
deepen. A bat flitters dumbly by. Vick, to whose faith all things seem
possible, runs sharply barking and racing after it. We both laugh at the
fruitlessness of her undertaking, and the joint merriment restores
suavity to me, and assurance to him.

"And are you to stay here by yourself _all_ the time he is away--_all_?"

"God forbid!" reply I, with devout force.

"Not? well, then--I am really afraid this is a question again, but I
cannot help it. If you will not volunteer information, I must ask for
it--who is to be your companion?"

"I suppose they will take turns," say I, relapsing into dejection, as I
think of the precarious nature of the society on which I depend;
"sometimes one, sometimes another, whichever can get away best--they
will take turns."

"And who is to have the _first_ turn?" he asks, leaning back in the
corner of the seat, so as to have a fuller view of my lamentable
profile; "when is the first installment of consolatory relatives to
arrive?"

"Algy and Barbara _were_ to have come to-day," reply I, feeling a covert
resentment against something of faintly _gibing_ in his tone, but being
conscious that it is not perceptible enough to justify another snub,
even if I had one ready, which I have not.

"And they did not?"

"Now is not that a silly question?" cry I, tartly, venting the crossness
born of my desolation on the only person within reach; "if they _had_,
should I be sitting moping here with nobody but Vick to talk to?"

"You forget _me_! may I not run in couples even with a _dog_?" he asks,
with a little bitter laugh.

"I did not forget you," reply I, coolly; "but you do not affect the
question one way or another--you will be gone directly and--when you
are--"

"Thank you for the hint," he cries springing up, picking up his little
stick off the grass and flushing.

"You are not going?" cry I, eagerly, laying my hand on his coat-sleeve,
"do not! why should you? there is no hurry. Let me have some one to help
me to keep the ghosts at bay as long as I can!" then, with a dim
consciousness of having said something rather _odd_, I add, reddening,
"I shall be going in directly, and you may go then."

He reseats himself. A tiny air is ruffling the