my hands. Whether it was anything about the "Skelligs," or
"Miss Sedgwick's Letters," or "Stanley-Livingstone," I have not the
remotest idea. I was fascinated by the gentle dip of each tea-cup,
and watched from the corner of my eye the process of polishing each
glittering spoon on a comfortable crash towel.

Then my thoughts darted off to Bessie. Was she indeed writing to her
old trustee? Judge Hubbard was a friend of my father's, and would
approve of me, I thought, if he did not agree at once to the hurried
marriage and ocean journey.

"What an unconscionable time it takes her! Don't you think so, Mrs.
Sloman?" I said at last, after I had gone through three several papers
on subjects unknown.

I suppose it was scarcely a courteous speech. But Mrs. Sloman smiled a
white-lipped smile of sympathy, and said, "Yes; I will go and send her
to you."

"Oh, don't hurry her," I said falsely, hoping, however, that she
would.

Did I say before that Bessie was tall? Though so slight that you
always wanted to speak of her with some endearing diminutive, she
looked taller than ever that morning; and as she stood before me,
coming up to the fireplace where I was standing, her eyes looked
nearly level into mine. I did not understand their veiled expression,
and before I had time to study it she dropped them and said hastily,
"Young man, I am pining for a walk."

"In the rain?"

"Pshaw! This is nothing, after all, but a Scotch mist. See, I am
dressed for it;" and she threw a tartan cloak over her shoulder--a
blue-and-green tartan that I had never seen before.

"The very thing for shipboard," I whispered as I looked at her
admiringly.

Her face was flushed enough now, but she made no answer save to stoop
down and pat the silly little terrier that had come trotting into the
room with her.

"Fidget shall go--yes, he shall go walking;" and Fidget made a gray
ball of himself in his joy at the permission.

Up the hill again we walked, with the little Skye terrier cantering in
advance or madly chasing the chickens across the road.

"Did you finish your letter satisfactorily?" I asked, for I was
fretting with impatience to know its contents.

"Yes. I will give it to you when you leave to-night."

"Shall we say next Saturday, Bessie?" said I, resolving to plunge at
once into the sea of our late argument.

"For what? For you to come again? Don't you always come on Saturday?"

"Yes, but this time I mean to carry you away."