to Putney, and indeed only knew that he had made so sure of finding
her there, by his disappointment to learn she had not returned home.
It made his task no easier that Aunt Susannah was in the garden when
he reached the house, and he had to dissemble his alarm in presence of
that weak-minded and affectionate spinster. "He was passing by," he
said, "on his way to town, and only looked in (he couldn't stay a
moment) to know if they had any message to--to their nephew. He was
going straight from here to the painting-room."

"How considerate!" said Aunt Susannah; not without reason, for it was
but this morning they parted with Simon, and they expected him back to
dinner. "We have a few autumn flowers left. I'll just run in, and
get the scissors to make up a nosegay. It won't take ten minutes. O!
nothing like ten minutes! You can give it to poor Simon with our dear
love. He's so fond of flowers! and Nina too. But perhaps you know
Nina's tastes as well as we do, and indeed I think they're very
creditable to her, and she's not at all a bad judge!"

Then the good lady, shaking her grey curls, smiled and looked knowing,
while Dick cursed her below his breath, for a grinning old idiot, and
glared wildly about him, like a beast in a trap seeking some way of
escape. It was provoking, no doubt, to be kept talking platitudes to a
silly old woman in the garden, while every moment drifted his heart's
treasure farther and farther into the uncertainty he scarcely dared to
contemplate.

Some women are totally deficient in the essentially feminine quality
of tact. Aunt Susannah, with a pocket-handkerchief tied round her
head, might have stood drivelling nonsense to her visitor for an hour,
and never found out he wanted to get away. Fortunately, she went
indoors for her scissors, and Dick, regardless of the proprieties,
made his escape forthwith, thus avoiding also the ignominy of carrying
back to London a nosegay as big as a chimney-sweep's on May-day.

Hastening to the painting-room, his worst fears were realised. Nina
had not returned. Simon, too, began to share his alarm, and not
without considerable misgivings did the two men hold counsel on their
future movements.

It occurred to them at this juncture, that the maid-of-all-work
below-stairs might possibly impart some information as to the exact
time when the young lady left the house. They rang for that domestic
accordingly, and bewildered her with a variety of questions in va