of its normal weight, it was no light
burden, even then, to be undertaken single-handed.

He slept long and late that Sunday morning; for he had been too
preoccupied for the last few days to make any arrangements for attending
chapel with his Matilda, and he was in sore need of repose besides. So
he rose just in time to swallow his coffee and array himself carefully
for his aunt's early dinner, leaving his two Sunday papers--the
theatrical and the general organs--unread on his table.

It was a foggy, dull day, and Millman Street, never a cheerful
thoroughfare, looked gloomier than ever as he turned into it. But one of
those dingy fronts held Matilda--a circumstance which irradiated the
entire district for him.

He had scarcely time to knock before the door was opened by Matilda in
person. She looked more charming than ever, in a neat dark dress, with a
little white collar and cuffs. Her hair was arranged in a new fashion,
being banded by a neat braided tress across the crown; and her grey
eyes, usually serene and cold, were bright and eager.

The hairdresser felt his heart swell with love at the sight of her. What
a lucky man he was, after all, to have such a girl as this to care for
him! If he could keep her--ah, if he could only keep her!

"I told your aunt _I_ was going to open the door to you," she said. "I
wanted----Oh, Leander, you've not brought it, after all!"

"Meaning what, Tillie, my darling?" said Leander.

"Oh, you know--my cloak!"

He had had so much to think about that he had really forgotten the cloak
of late.

"Well, no, I've not brought that--not the cloak, Tillie," he said
slowly.

"What a time they are about it!" complained Matilda.

"You see," explained the poor man, "when a cloak like that is damaged,
it has to be sent back to the manufacturers to be done, and they've so
many things on their hands. I couldn't promise that you'll have that
cloak--well, not this side of Christmas, at least."

"You must have been very rough with it, then, Leander," she remarked.

"I was," he said. "I don't know how I came to _be_ so rough. You see, I
was trying to tear it off----" But here he stopped.

"Trying to tear it off what?"

"Trying to tear it off nothink, but trying to tear the wrapper off _it_.
It was so involved," he added, "with string and paper and that; and I'm
a clumsy, unlucky sort of chap, sweet one; and I'm uncommon sorry about
it, that I am!"

"Well, we won't say any more about i