hristian name?"

"Christian name? MY Christian name. Well--Chris." He snapped his lamp
and stood up. "If you will hold my machine, I will light yours," he
said.

She came round obediently and took his machine, and for a moment they
stood face to face. "My name, brother Chris," she said, "is Jessie."

He looked into her eyes, and his excitement seemed arrested. "JESSIE,"
he repeated slowly. The mute emotion of his face affected her strangely.
She had to speak. "It's not such a very wonderful name, is it?" she
said, with a laugh to break the intensity.

He opened his mouth and shut it again, and, with a sudden wincing of his
features, abruptly turned and bent down to open the lantern in front of
her machine. She looked down at him, almost kneeling in front of
her, with an unreasonable approbation in her eyes. It was, as I have
indicated, the hour and season of the full moon.

XXV.

Mr. Hoopdriver conducted the rest of that night's journey with the same
confident dignity as before, and it was chiefly by good luck and the
fact that most roads about a town converge thereupon, that Chichester
was at last attained. It seemed at first as though everyone had gone to
bed, but the Red Hotel still glowed yellow and warm. It was the first
time Hoopdriver bad dared the mysteries of a 'first-class' hotel.' But
that night he was in the mood to dare anything.

"So you found your Young Lady at last," said the ostler of the Red
Hotel; for it chanced he was one of those of whom Hoopdriver had made
inquiries in the afternoon.

"Quite a misunderstanding," said Hoopdriver, with splendid readiness.
"My sister had gone to Bognor But I brought her back here. I've took a
fancy to this place. And the moonlight's simply dee-vine."

"We've had supper, thenks, and we're tired," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "I
suppose you won't take anything,--Jessie?"

The glory of having her, even as a sister! and to call her Jessie like
that! But he carried it off splendidly, as he felt himself bound to
admit. "Good-night, Sis," he said, "and pleasant dreams. I'll just 'ave
a look at this paper before I turn in." But this was living indeed! he
told himself.

So gallantly did Mr. Hoopdriver comport himself up to the very edge of
the Most Wonderful Day of all. It had begun early, you will remember,
with a vigil in a little sweetstuff shop next door to the Angel at
Midhurst. But to think of all the things that had happened since then!
He caught himself in