"I—I—will!" wailed the now alarmed Quimby, as Celeste blushingly withdrew from her embrace of him. "I—I will see you to-morrow if I—if I live!" and striking his forehead with his hand, he burst away, bounded frantically down the stairs and fled, ejaculating,
"I knew it! I had a presentiment from my youth!"
"Excuse his eccentricity, Pa!" Celeste said. "He loves me so much, poor fellow!"
"Humph! Get enough of that!" he growled, with contempt.
"And he has a nice little property!" added Celeste, as they went up stairs.
"Property is the thing!" Fishblate père said, with undisguised plainness.
Nattie emerged from her retreat on the hasty exit of Quimby and Celeste, so full of regret for the flight that had proved so disastrous to him, that the ludicrous part of the scene just enacted was forgotten.
"Poor Quimby!" she thought, remorsefully. "What a dreadful fix he is in! I hope he will get out of it; and I am so sorry for my share in it! How strange it would be if he should, as he once said, marry the wrong woman, after all!"
