pearance?
some _gaucherie_ in her dress? Impossible. No lady in all St. Dunstan
was ever more precise. She glanced at her companion: a clean-looking,
well-groomed, well-dressed youth. Suddenly it occurred to Miss Appleyard
that she and Grindley junior were holding each other's hand. Miss
Appleyard was justly indignant.

"How dare you!" said Miss Appleyard. "I am exceedingly angry with you.
How dare you!"

The olive skin was scarlet. There were tears in the hazel eyes.

"Leave me this minute!" commanded Miss Appleyard.

Instead of which, Grindley junior seized both her hands.

"I love you! I adore you! I worship you!" poured forth young Grindley,
forgetful of all Miss Appleyard had ever told him concerning the folly of
tautology.

"You had no right," said Miss Appleyard.

"I couldn't help it," pleaded young Grindley. "And that isn't the
worst."

Miss Appleyard paled visibly. For a grocer's assistant to dare to fall
in love with her, especially after all the trouble she had taken with
him! What could be worse?

"I'm not a grocer," continued young Grindley, deeply conscious of crime.
"I mean, not a real grocer."

And Grindley junior then and there made a clean breast of the whole sad,
terrible tale of shameless deceit, practised by the greatest villain the
world had ever produced, upon the noblest and most beautiful maiden that
ever turned grim London town into a fairy city of enchanted ways.

Not at first could Miss Appleyard entirely grasp it; not till hours
later, when she sat alone in her own room, where, fortunately for
himself, Grindley junior was not, did the whole force and meaning of the
thing come home to her. It was a large room, taking up half of the top
story of the big Georgian house in Nevill's Court; but even as it was,
Miss Appleyard felt cramped.

"For a year--for nearly a whole year," said Miss Appleyard, addressing
the bust of William Shakespeare, "have I been slaving my life out,
teaching him elementary Latin and the first five books of Euclid!"

As it has been remarked, it was fortunate for Grindley junior he was out
of reach. The bust of William Shakespeare maintained its irritating
aspect of benign philosophy.

"I suppose I should," mused Miss Appleyard, "if he had told me at
first--as he ought to have told me--of course I should naturally have had
nothing more to do with him. I suppose," mused Miss Appleyard, "a man in
love, if he is really in love, doesn't quite kn