o'clock on the Monday morning I might have got away without ever seeing
Mrs. Harvey-Browne again if the remembrance of Brosy's unvarying
kindness had not stirred me to send Gertrud up with a farewell message.

Mrs. Harvey-Browne, having heard all about my day on the _Bertha_ from
the landlady, and how I had come back in the unimpeachability of
singleness, the Professor safely handed over to his wife, forgave the
chin-chucking, forgave the secret setting out, and hurried on to the
landing in a wrapper, warmth in her heart and honey on her lips.

'What, you are leaving us, dear Frau X.?' she called over the baluster.
'So early? So suddenly? I can't come down to you--do come up here. _Why_
didn't you tell me you were going to-day?' she continued when I had come
up, holding my hand in both hers, speaking with emphatic cordiality, an
altogether melted and mellifluous bishop's wife.

'I hadn't quite decided. I fear I must go home to-day. They want me
badly.'

'That I can _quite_ understand--of course they want their little ray of
sunshine,' she cried, growing more and more mellifluous. 'Now tell me,'
she went on, stroking the hand she held, 'when are you coming to see us
all at Babbacombe?'

Babbacombe! Heavens. When indeed? Never, never, never, shrieked my soul.
'Oh thanks,' murmured my lips, 'how kind you are. But--do you think the
bishop would like me?'

'The bishop? He would more than like you, dear Frau X.--he would
positively glory in you.'

'Glory in me?' I faintly gasped; and a gaudy vision of the bishop
glorying, that bishop of whom I had been taught to think as steeped in
chronic sorrow, swam before my dazzled eyes. 'How kind you are. But I'm
afraid you are too kind. I'm afraid he would soon see there wasn't
anything to make him glory and much to make him grieve.'

'Well, well, we mustn't be so modest. Of course the bishop knows we are
all human, and so must have our little faults. But I can assure you he
would be _delighted_ to make your acquaintance. He is a most
large-minded man. Now _promise_.'

I murmured confused thanks and tried to draw my hand away, but it was
held tight. 'I shall miss the midday train at Bergen if I don't go at
once,' I appealed--'I really must go.'

'You long to be with all your dear ones again, I am sure.'

'If I don't catch this train I shall not get home to-night. I really
must go.'

'Ah, home. How charming your home must be. One hears so much about the
charming German