iled to him, the fossil said many times,
"How _per_fectly extraordinary!" "God bless my soul!" "You don't mean
_that_!" and so on; but his astonishment always knocked his double
eyeglass off, and, when he couldn't find it, it had to be recovered
before he could say, "Eh--eh--what was that?" and get in line again;
so he made a disjointed listener.

But these fossils see more than they hear sometimes; and this old
Major, for all he was so silent, must have noticed many little things
that Christmas evening to cause him to say what he did next day to
Sally. For, of course, the Major couldn't go back to his lodgings in
Ball Street in weather like this; so he stayed the night in the spare
room, where Mr. Fenwick had been put up tempory, cook said--a room
which was, in fact, usually spoken of as "the Major's room."

Of course, Sally was the sort of girl who would never see anything of
that sort--you'll see what sort directly--though she was as sharp as
a razor in a general way. What made her blind in this case was that,
in certain things, aspects, relations of life, she had ruled mother
out of court as an intrinsically grown-up person--one to whom some
speculations would not apply. So she saw nothing in the fact that when
Mr. Fenwick's knock came at the door, her mother said, "There he is,"
and went out to meet him; nor even in her stopping with him outside on
the landing, chatting confidentially and laughing. Why shouldn't she?

She saw nothing--nothing whatever--in Mr. Fenwick's bringing her
mother a beautiful sealskin jacket as a Christmas present. Why
shouldn't he? The only thing that puzzled Sally was, where on earth
did he get the money to buy it? But then, of course, he was "in the
City," and the City is a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground. Sally found
that enough, on reflection.

She saw nothing, either, in her mother's carrying her present away
upstairs, and saying nothing about it till afterwards. Nor did she
notice any abnormal satisfaction on Mr. Fenwick's countenance as he
came into the drawing-room by himself, such as one might discern in a
hen--if hens had countenances--after a special egg. Nor did she attach
any particular meaning to an expression on the elderly face of the
doctor's mother that any student of Lavater would at once have seen to
mean that _we_ saw what was going on, but were going to be maternally
discreet about it, and only mention it to every one we met in the very
strictest confidence. This lad