'And with whom to sit under one umbrella is a joy?'

'Surely, surely--but thou hast been of a great obstinacy----'

'Well, come and sit here and let us be happy. We're very comfortable
here, aren't we? Don't let us think any more about the wet, horrid,
obstinate, disappointing day we've had. And as for to-morrow, I've got a
plan.'

The Professor, who had begun to calm, sat down beside me on the sofa.
The landlord, deft and noiseless, was giving a finishing touch of roses
and fruit and candles to the supper table. He had been a butler in a
good family, and was of the most beautiful dignity and solemnity. We
were sitting in a very queer old room, used in past years for balls to
which the quality drove in from their distant estates and danced through
winter nights. There was a gallery for the fiddlers, and the chairs and
benches ranged round the walls were still covered with a festive-looking
faded red stuff. In the middle of this room the landlord had put a table
for us to sup at, and had arranged it in a way I had not seen since
leaving home. No one else was in the house but ourselves. No one,
hardly, of the tourist class comes to Wiek; and yet, or because of it,
this inn of all the inns I had stayed at was in every way quite
excellent.

'Tell me then thy plan, little one,' said the Professor, settling
himself comfortably into the sofa corner.

'Oh, it's quite simple. You and I to-morrow morning will go to
Hiddensee.'

'Go! Yes, but how? It is Sunday, and even if it were not, no steamers
seem to go to what appears to be a spot of great desolation.'

'We'll hire a fishing-smack.'

'And if there is no wind?'

'We'll pray for wind.'

'And I shall spend an entire day within the cramped limits of a vessel
in the company of the English female bishop? I tell thee it is not to be
accomplished.'

'No, no--of course they mustn't come too.'

'Come? She will come if she wishes to. Never did I meet a more
commanding woman.'

'No, no, we must circumvent the Harvey-Brownes.'

'Do thou stay here then, and circumvent. Then shall I proceed in safety
on my way.'

'Oh no,' I exclaimed in some consternation; the success of my plan,
which was by no means to be explained in its entirety to the Professor,
wholly depended on my going too. 'I--I want to see Charlotte again. You
know I'm--fond of Charlotte. And besides, long before you got to
Hiddensee you would have sunk into another abstraction and begun to fish
or somethi