ed, with something of contempt as well as
good-nature in the laugh; and went away to the play by himself evidently
feeling that I was still as bad a companion as he had found me at
college, years ago.

As soon as we parted I felt a sense of relief. I hesitated, walked
backwards and forwards a few paces in the street; and then, silencing
all doubts, leaving my inclinations to guide me as they would--I turned
my steps for the third time in that one day to Hollyoake Square.

The fair summer evening was tending towards twilight; the sun stood
fiery and low in a cloudless horizon; the last loveliness of the last
quietest daylight hour was fading on the violet sky, as I entered the
square.

I approached the house. She was at the window--it was thrown wide open.
A bird-cage hung rather high up, against the shutter-panel. She was
standing opposite to it, making a plaything for the poor captive canary
of a piece of sugar, which she rapidly offered and drew back again,
now at one bar of the cage, and now at another. The bird hopped and
fluttered up and down in his prison after the sugar, chirping as if he
enjoyed playing _his_ part of the game with his mistress. How lovely she
looked! Her dark hair, drawn back over each cheek so as just to leave
the lower part of the ear visible, was gathered up into a thick simple
knot behind, without ornament of any sort. She wore a plain white dress
fastening round the neck, and descending over the bosom in numberless
little wavy plaits. The cage hung just high enough to oblige her to look
up to it. She was laughing with all the glee of a child; darting the
piece of sugar about incessantly from place to place. Every moment, her
head and neck assumed some new and lovely turn--every moment her figure
naturally fell into the position which showed its pliant symmetry best.
The last-left glow of the evening atmosphere was shining on her--the
farewell pause of daylight over the kindred daylight of beauty and
youth.

I kept myself concealed behind a pillar of the garden-gate; I looked,
hardly daring either to move or breathe; for I feared that if she saw or
heard me, she would leave the window. After a lapse of some minutes, the
canary touched the sugar with his beak.

"There, Minnie!" she cried laughingly, "you have caught the runaway
sugar, and now you shall keep it!"

For a moment more, she stood quietly looking at the cage; then raising
herself on tip-toe, pouted her lips caressingly to th