g shadow, a riddle
that turned from her the more she tried to make him real. She went
down.

"Why, Catharine!" He held her hand, patting it between his own, which
were warm and moist. "I really could not deny myself a glimpse of you,
though I was sent on an errand by Maria to the station. But all roads
end for me in the Book-shop. That is natural--he! he!"

"Yes, it is natural."

"It must be only a glimpse, though. I begged of Jane a cup of hot tea,
to take off the chill of this morning air. Ah, here it is: thank you,
my good girl. Only a glimpse, for Maria's business was urgent: Maria's
business always is urgent. But I was to intercept Doctor McCall on his
way to the cars."

"Is he going this morning?"

"Yes. Not to return, it appears."

"Not to return?" Her voice seemed hardly to have the energy of a
question in it.

"But I," with a shrug and significant laugh, "am not to allow him to
go. Behold in me an emissary of Love! You; would not have suspected
a Mercury in your William, Catharine?" Within the last month he had
begun to talk down in this fashion to her, accommodating himself to
her childish tastes.

"What is Mercury's errand?"

"Aha! you curious little puss! How a woman does prick her ears at the
mention of a love-story! Though, I suppose, this one is wellnigh its
end. Maria made no secret of it. Doctor McCall, I inferred from what
she said, had been pouring out his troubles in her ear, and she sent
me to bring him back to her with the message that she had found a
way of escape from them. Eh? Did you speak? You did not know _what_,
dear?"

"I did not know that Maria had the right to bring him back. They
are--"

"Engaged? Oh, certainly. At least--It is an old attachment, and Maria
is such a woman to manage, you know! Is that the tea-pot, Jane? Just
fill my cup again. Oh yes, I suppose it is all settled."

Catharine was standing by the window. The wind blew in chilly and
strong, while Mr. Muller behind her sipped his tea and ambled in his
talk. Crossing the meadow, going down the road, she saw the large
figure of a man in a loose light overcoat, who swung in his gait and
carried his hat in his hand as a boy would do. Even if he had loved
her, she could not, like Maria, have gone a step to meet him, nor
intoned the Song of Solomon. But he did not love her.

She turned to her companion: "There is something I wished to say."

"In one moment, my dear." He was sweetening his tea. Hanging the
silve