t was coming, for I felt you
drawing into a shell of consciousness, that would have made me nervous
too, if I had not been impertinent instead"

Cecil was not far from a relapse, for dreamily happy as she was, she
had already begun to torment herself. She had accepted Du Meresq so
readily,--good Heavens! she might almost say thankfully,--and, disguise
it as he might, he must know it. Could a thing be really valued that was
so easy of attainment? When Cecil was shy she was usually dumb, it never
revealed itself by hasty, foolish speech, or an artificial laugh. Her
countenance, however, was not so silent; and Bertie, as he watched her
changing hues and varying expression, thought how much more he admired
that mobile, sensitive face, than the pink and white of a soul-less
beauty.

"Where is your hand, Cecil?" stretching out a long arm to feel for it. "I
am sure a dragon of propriety might trust a loving pair in this wabbly
little craft, which an attempt at osculation would upset."

There was just breeze enough to fill the little sail, which bore them
swiftly and gently along. A pale star came out in the sky. Though dusk,
it was far from dark, night in a Canadian summer being of very
abbreviated duration. The lovers had relapsed into dreamy reverie, but,
as they began to approach more familiar objects, stern reality resumed
its sway. Cecil was the first to give evidence of it, by saying, in
rather a subdued voice,--

"Don't you think, Bertie, as you must go away to-morrow, you had better
get _it_ over to night?"

"Heaven forbid!" cried he, rousing up, "let us have this evening in
peace. You see, my dearest little Cecil, _he_ will hate it anyhow, and
to-night will be awfully put out at my bringing you home so late; so this
would be the very worst opportunity to choose. To-morrow, after dinner,
I'll try what I can do with him. I am a shocking bad match for you,
Cecil, and that's the fact. But when I went back to Montreal, thinking
of nothing but you, I considered and pondered over every possibility
of putting my prospects in a fair light to your father. To the amazement
of my creditors, I _asked_ for their accounts. Then I made a little
arrangement with Green, the senior lieutenant. He is the son of a
money-lender, and very sick of being a subaltern; so he paid the
over-regulation down on account for my troop, and will shell out
the rest, with an extra thousand, directly my papers are in. The
over-regulation money, with