in him, and assured me he thoroughly deserved it--and talked so
funnily and so nicely that I quite forgave myself. I really don't
think he guessed for one moment what I had been driving at all the
while; I got back all my self-respect; I felt so grateful to him
that I was fonder of him than ever, though no longer so idiotically
in love. He was not for me. He had somehow laughed me into love with
him, and laughed me out of it.

"Then I bade him good-bye, and squeezed his hand with all my heart,
and told him how much I should like some day to meet Miss Gibson
and be her friend if she would let me.

"Then I went back to Riffrath and took mamma her loch; but she no
longer wanted it, for I told her I had changed my mind about Freddy,
and that cured her like magic; and she kissed me on both cheeks and
called me her dear, darling, divine Julia. Poor, sweet mamma!

"I had given her many a bad quarter of an hour, but this good moment
made up for them all.

"She was eighty-two last birthday, and can still read Josselin's
works in the cheap edition without spectacles--thanks, no doubt, to
the famous Doctor Hasenclever! She reads nothing else!

"Et voila comment ca s'est passe.

"It's I that'll be the proud woman when I read this letter, printed,
in your life of Josselin.

"Yours sincerely,

"Julia Ironsides.

"P. S.--I've actually just told mamma--and I'm still her dear,
darling, divine Julia!"

* * * * *

Charming as were Barty's remembrances of Duesseldorf, the most
charming of all was his remembrance of going aboard the little
steamboat bound for Rotterdam, one night at the end of May, with old
Mrs. Bletchley, Mrs. Gibson and her daughter, and my sister Ida.

The little boat was crowded; the ladies found what accommodation
they could in what served for a ladies' cabin, and expostulated and
bribed their best; fortunately for them, no doubt, there were no
English on board to bribe against them.

Barty spent the night on deck, supine, with a carpet-bag for a
pillow; we will take the full moon for granted. From Duesseldorf to
Rotterdam there is little to see on either side of a Rhine
steamboat, except the Rhine--especially at night.

[Illustration: "'DOES SHE _KNOW_ YOU'RE VERY FOND OF HER?'"]

Next day, after breakfast, he made the l