"I have heard my aunt speak of you," she says, gently, "and we were coming to hear you preach to-morrow."
"And you know Paul?" continued Mr. Frere; "how very odd! I suppose you did not know he was in this part of the world?"
"I thought he was in Scotland."
"You said you were going to Scarbro'," says Paul, "you changed your mind?"
"Yes, like you. It is not a difficult thing to do, to change one's mind, is it?"
Their eyes met; ay, these two were hot lovers once, but what are they now?
"You have laid me under a great obligation, Mr. Vasher," she says, in her proud young voice. "Pray understand that I am grateful. Good night, Mr. Frere, and forgive me, if you can, for startling you so much."
"Good night! good night!" he says, and so with a hand-shake she goes, and the two men accompany her to the gate.
Now if Mr. Frere had possessed the most rudimental idea of his duty on this occasion, he would have stopped behind with me. Clearly he has about as much notion of being a gooseberry as a . cabbage; but my instinct is active enough if his is not, and a long course of sympathy with Alice and Charles has made me very tender-hearted on the subject of lovers; so as Mr. Frere passes the window with the two young people, I utter a dismal groan and call out to him that I have tumbled down and hurt myself very much. Back he comes in a twinkling and finds me nursing my leg on the floor, with a twisted ankle. "I tumbled over a footstool," I explain, "and will you assist me to the sofa?" He wants to call Mrs. Pim, and have it examined; but this I object to, giving it as my opinion that rest is all that is required.
"So odd," says the poor gentleman, as he brings me a book
