time, and seemed altogether downcast and depressed."

"I don't deny it," I said calmly.

"Well," continued he, "some old experiences, of mine have taught me that
this sort of anxiety has generally but one source, with fellows of _our_
age, and which simply means that the remittance we have counted upon
as certain has been, from some cause or other, delayed. Is n't that the
truth?"

"No," said I, joyfully, for I was greatly relieved by his words; "no, on
my honor, nothing of the kind."

"I may not have hit the thing exactly," said he, hurriedly, "but I 'll
be sworn it is a money matter; and if a couple of hundred pounds be of
the least service--"

"My dear, kind-hearted fellow," I broke in, "I can't endure this longer:
it is no question of money; it is nothing that affects my means, though
I half wish it were, to show you how cheerfully I could owe you my
escape from a difficulty,--not, indeed, that I need another tie to bind
me to you--" But I could say no more, for my eyes were swimming over, and
my lips trembling.

"Then," cried he, "I have only to ask pardon for thus obtruding upon
your confidence."

I was too full of emotion to do more than squeeze his hand
affectionately, and thus we walked along, side by side, neither uttering
a word. At last, and as it were with an effort, by a bold transition,
to carry our thoughts into another and very different channel, he said:
"Here's a letter from old Dyke, our landlord. The worthy father has
been enjoying himself in a tour of English watering-places, and has now
started for a few weeks up the Rhine. His account of his holiday, as he
calls it, is amusing; nor less so is the financial accident to which
he owes the excursion. Take it, and read it," he added, giving me the
epistle. "If the style be the man, his reverence is not difficult to
decipher."

I bestowed little attention on this speech, uttered, as I perceived,
rather from the impulse of starting a new topic than anything else, and,
taking the letter half mechanically, I thrust it in my pocket. One or
two efforts we made at conversation were equally failures, and it was a
relief to me when Crofton, suddenly remembering some night-lines be
had laid in a mountain lake a few miles off, hastily shook my hand, and
said, "Good-bye till dinner-time."

When I reached the cottage, instead of entering I strolled into
the garden, and sought out a little summer-house of sweet-brier and
honeysuckle, on the edge of the