"

"What is the use of pretending? You know I know. And it _is_ colder,
much colder, this morning. I felt it directly I got up."

"Quite a change in the weather, I'm sure," he said mechanically; "it
feels like a frost coming on." ("Has Matilda looked in to tell me the
weather's changed?" he was wondering within himself. "Either I'm mad, or
Matilda is.")

"You dear old goose!" said Matilda, with an unusual effusiveness; "you
shan't tease me like this! Do you think I've no eyes and no feelings?
Any girl, I don't care how proud or offended, would come round on such
proof of devotedness as I've had this evening. When I saw it gone, I
felt I must come straight in and thank you, and tell you I shouldn't
think any more of last night. I couldn't stop myself."

"When you saw _what_ gone?" cried the hairdresser, rubbing up his hair.

"The cloak," said Matilda; and then, as she saw his expression, her own
changed. "Leander Tweddle," she asked, in a dry hard voice, "have I been
making a wretched fool of myself? _Didn't_ you buy that cloak?"

He understood at last. He had gone to Miss Twilling's chiefly because he
was in a hurry and it was close by, and he knew nowhere else where he
could be sure of getting what he required. Now, by some supreme stroke
of the ill-luck which seemed to be pursuing him of late, he had
unwittingly purchased the identical garment on which Matilda had fixed
her affections! How was he to notice that they took it out of the window
for him?

All this flashed across him as he replied, "Yes, yes, Tillie, I did buy
a cloak there; but are you sure it was the same you told me about?"

"Do you think a woman doesn't know the look of a thing like that, when
it's taken her fancy?" said Matilda. "Why, I could tell you every clasp
and tassel on that cloak; it wasn't one you'd see every day, and I knew
it was gone the moment I passed the window. It quite upset me, for I'd
set my heart on it so; and I ran in to Miss Twilling, and asked her what
had become of it; and when she said she'd sold it that morning, I
thought I should have fainted. You see, it never struck me that it could
be you; for how could I dream that you'd be clever enough to go and
choose the very one? Leander, it _was_ clever of you!"

"Yes," he said, with a bitter rail against himself. "I'm a clever chap,
I am! But how did you find out?"

"Oh, I made Miss Twilling (I often get little things there), I made her
describe who she sold it to, and