has yet gathered is, that she cries rather more when we tell her she is right to say No than when we tell her she is right to say Yes.’
‘I declare, Ethel, you must let me go up to her.’
‘But, Harry, I promised she should hear no more about it to-night. You must say nothing unless she begins.’
And thinking a quiet night’s rest, free from further excitement, the best chance of a rational day, Ethel was glad that her mission resulted in the report, ‘Far too nearly asleep to be disturbed;’ but on the way up to bed, soft as Harry’s footfalls always were, a voice came down the stairs, ‘That’s Harry! Oh, come!’ and with a face of triumph turned back to meet Ethel’s glance of discomfited warning, he bounded up, to be met by Mary in her dressing-gown. ‘O, Harry, why didn’t you come?’ as she threw her arms round his neck.
‘They wouldn’t let me.’
‘I did think I heard you; but when no one came I thought it was only Richard, till I heard the dear old step, and then I knew. O, Harry!’ and still she gasped, with her head on his shoulder.
‘They said you must be quiet.’
‘O Harry! did you hear?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ holding her closer, ‘and heartily glad I am; I know him as well as if I had sailed with him, and I could not wish you in better hands.’
‘But—O, Harry dear—’ and there was a struggle with a sob between each word, ‘indeed—I won’t—mind if you had rather not.’
‘Do you mean that you don’t like him?’
‘I should see him, you know, and perhaps he would not mind—he could always come and talk to papa in the evenings.’
‘And is that what you want to put a poor man off with, Mary?’
‘Only—only—if you don’t want me to—’
‘I not want you to—? Why, Mary, isn’t it the very best thing I could want for you? What are you thinking about?’
‘Don’t you remember, when you came home after your wound, you said I—I mustn’t—’ and she fell into such a paroxysm of crying that he had quite to hold her up in his arms, and though his voice was merry, there was a moisture on his eyelashes. ‘Oh, you Polly! You’re a caution against deluding the infant mind! Was that all? Was that what made you distract them all? Why not have said so?’
‘Oh, never! They would have said you were foolish.’
‘As I was for not knowing that you wouldn’t understand that I only meant you were to wait till the right one turned up. Why, if I had been at Auckland, would you have cried till I came home?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry I was silly! But I’m glad you didn’t mean it, dear Harry!’ squeezing him convulsively.
‘There! And now you’ll sleep sound, and meet them as fresh as a fair wind tomorrow. Eh?’
‘Only please tell papa I’m sorry I worried him.’
‘And how about somebody else, Mary, whom you’ve kept on tenter-hooks ever so long? Are you sure he is not walking up and down under the limes on the brink of despair?’
‘Oh, do you think—? But he would not be so foolish!’
‘There now, go to sleep. I’ll settle it all for you, and I shan’t let any one say you are a goose but myself. Only sleep, and get those horrid red spots away from under your eyes, or perhaps he’ll repent his bargain, said Harry, kissing each red spot. ‘Promise you’ll go to bed the instant I’m gone.’
‘Well,’ said Dr. May, looking out of his room, ‘I augur that the spirit of the flood has something to say to the spirit of the fell.’
‘I should think so! Genuine article—no mistake.’
‘Then what was all this about?’
‘All my fault. Some rhodomontade of mine about not letting her marry had cast anchor in her dear little ridiculous heart, and it is well I turned up before she had quite dissolved herself away.’
‘Is that really all?’
‘The sum total of the whole, as sure as—’ said Harry, pausing for an asseveration, and ending with ‘as sure as your name is Dick May;’ whereat they both fell a-laughing, though they were hardly drops of laughter that Harry brushed from the weather-marked pucker in the comer of his eyes; and Dr. May gave a sigh of relief, and said, ‘Well, that’s right!’
‘Where’s the latch-key? I must run down and put Cheviot out of his misery.’
‘It is eleven o’clock, he’ll be gone to bed.’
‘Then I would forbid the banns. Where does he hang out? Has he got into old Hoxton’s?’
‘No, it is being revivified. He is at Davis’s lodgings. But I advise you not, a little suspense will do him good.’
‘One would think you had never been in love,’ said Harry, indignantly. ‘At least, I can’t sleep till I’ve shaken hands with the old fellow. Good night, father. I’ll not be long.’
He kept his word, and the same voice greeted him out of the dressing-room: ‘How was the spirit of the fell? Sleep’st thou, brother?’
‘Brother, nay,’ answered Harry, ‘he was only looking over Latin verses! He always was a cool hand.’
