half-inviting,
half-repelling the coming avowal. "If I tell you the first letter of my
Somebody's name, will you tell me the first letter of yours?"

"I will tell you anything you like," rejoined Allan, with the utmost
enthusiasm.

She still shrank coquettishly from the very subject that she wanted to
approach. "Tell me your letter first," she said, in low tones, looking
away from him.

Allan laughed. "M," he said, "is my first letter."

She started a little. Strange that he should be thinking of her by her
surname instead of her Christian name; but it mattered little as long as
he _was_ thinking of her.

"What is your letter?" asked Allan.

She blushed and smiled. "A--if you will have it!" she answered, in a
reluctant little whisper. She stole another look at him, and luxuriously
protracted her enjoyment of the coming avowal once more. "How many
syllables is the name in?" she asked, drawing patterns shyly on the
ground with the end of the parasol.

No man with the slightest knowledge of the sex would have been rash
enough, in Allan's position, to tell her the truth. Allan, who knew
nothing whatever of woman's natures, and who told the truth right
and left in all mortal emergencies, answered as if he had been under
examination in a court of justice.

"It's a name in three syllables," he said.

Miss Milroy's downcast eyes flashed up at him like lightning. "Three!"
she repeated in the blankest astonishment.

Allan was too inveterately straightforward to take the warning even now.
"I'm not strong at my spelling, I know," he said, with his lighthearted
laugh. "But I don't think I'm wrong, in calling Midwinter a name
in three syllables. I was thinking of my friend; but never mind my
thoughts. Tell me who A is--tell me whom _you_ were thinking of?"

"Of the first letter of the alphabet, Mr. Armadale, and I beg positively
to inform you of nothing more!"

With that annihilating answer the major's daughter put up her parasol
and walked back by herself to the boat.

Allan stood petrified with amazement. If Miss Milroy had actually boxed
his ears (and there is no denying that she had privately longed to
devote her hand to that purpose), he could hardly have felt more
bewildered than he felt now. "What on earth have I done?" he asked
himself, helplessly, as the major and young Pedgift joined him, and the
three walked down together to the water-side. "I wonder what she'll say
to me next?"

She said absolutely noth