England!' and then the cheerful martyr
took a few steps farther.

'Why, you don't mean to say you're going to give me up, and not be
friends with me, because we've come back to England?' cried the girl in a
rapid breath, eyeing him seriously.

Most conscientiously he did not mean it! but he replied with the quietest
negative.

'No?' she mimicked him. 'Why do you say "No" like that? Why are you so
mysterious, Evan? Won't you promise me to come and stop with us for
weeks? Haven't you said we would ride, and hunt, and fish together, and
read books, and do all sorts of things?'

He replied with the quietest affirmative.

'Yes? What does "Yes!" mean?' She lifted her chest to shake out the
dead-alive monosyllable, as he had done. 'Why are you so singular this
morning, Evan? Have I offended you? You are so touchy!'

The slur on his reputation for sensitiveness induced the young man to
attempt being more explicit.

'I mean,' he said, hesitating; 'why, we must part. We shall not see each
other every day. Nothing more than that.' And away went the cheerful
martyr in sublimest mood.

'Oh! and that makes you, sorry?' A shade of archness was in her voice.

The girl waited as if to collect something in her mind, and was now a
patronizing woman.

'Why, you dear sentimental boy! You don't suppose we could see each other
every day for ever?'

It was perhaps the cruelest question that could have been addressed to
the sentimental boy from her mouth. But he was a cheerful martyr!

'You dear Don Doloroso!' she resumed. 'I declare if you are not just like
those young Portugals this morning; and over there you were such a dear
English fellow; and that's why I liked you so much! Do change! Do,
please, be lively, and yourself again. Or mind; I'll call you
Don Doloroso, and that shall be your name in England. See
there!--that's--that's? what's the name of that place? Hoy! Mr. Skerne!'
She hailed the boatswain, passing, 'Do tell me the name of that place.'

Mr. Skerne righted about to satisfy her minutely, and then coming up to
Evan, he touched his hat, and said:

'I mayn't have another opportunity--we shall be busy up there--of
thankin' you again, sir, for what you did for my poor drunken brother
Bill, and you may take my word I won't forget it, sir, if he does; and I
suppose he'll be drowning his memory just as he was near drowning
himself.'

Evan muttered something, grimaced civilly, and turned away. The girl's
observant br