answer, but she pressed his hand tightly as she looked
up into his face. He kissed her as she stood, notwithstanding his
belief that old Mrs Keswick was fully capable of bounding down on him,
umbrella in hand, from an upper window.

"What do you think she is going to do?" Annie asked presently.

"My dear Annie," said he, "I do not believe that there is a person on
earth who could divine what your Aunt Keswick is going to do. As to
that, we must simply wait and see. But, for my part, I know what I
must do. I must write a letter to Miss March, and inform her, plainly
and definitely, that I have ceased to be a suitor for her hand. I
think also that it will be well to let her know that we are engaged?"

"Yes," said Annie, "for she will be sure to hear it now. But she will
think it is a very prompt proceeding."

"That's exactly what it was," said Lawrence, smiling, "prompt and
determined. There was no doubt or indecision about any part of our
affair, was there, little one?"

"Not a bit of it," said Annie, proudly.

At dinner that day Annie took her place at one end of the table,
and Lawrence his at the other, but the old lady did not make her
appearance. She was so erratic in her goings and comings, and had so
often told them they must never wait for her, that Annie cut the ham,
and Lawrence carved the fowl, and the meal proceeded without her. But
while they were eating Mrs Keswick was heard coming down stairs from
her room, the front door was opened and slammed violently, and from
the dining-room windows they saw her go down the steps, across the
yard, and out of the gate.

"I do hope," ejaculated Annie, "that she has not gone away to stay!"

If Annie had remembered that the boy Plez, in a clean jacket and long
white apron, officiated as waiter, she would not have said this, but
then she would have lost some information. "Ole miss not gone to
stay," he said, with the license of an untrained retainer. "She gone
to Howlettses, an' she done tole Aun' Letty she'll be back agin dis
ebenin'."

"If Aunt Keswick don't come back," said Annie, when the two were in
the parlor after dinner, "I shall go after her. I don't intend to
drive her out of the house."

"Don't you trouble yourself about that, my dear," said Lawrence. "She
is too angry not to come back."

"There is one thing," said Annie, after a while, "that we really ought
to do. To-morrow Aunt Patsy is to be buried, and before she is put
into the ground, those l