ng,
perhaps, but not important.

Certain circumstances, which will be immediately explained, connected
with this meeting, made it an event of very considerable interest to
Iris, even though she did not suspect its immense importance. So much
interest that she thought of nothing else for a week beforehand; that
as the appointed hour drew near she trembled and grew pale; that when
her grandfather came up for his tea, she, who was usually so quick to
discern the least sign of care or anxiety in his face, actually did
not observe the trouble, plainly written in his drooping head and
anxious eyes, which was due to his interview with Mr. David Chalker.

She poured out the tea, therefore, without one word of sympathy. This
would have seemed hard if her grandfather had expected any. He did
not, however, because he did not know that the trouble showed in his
face, and was trying to look as if nothing had happened. Yet in his
brain were ringing and resounding the words, "Within three
weeks--within three weeks," with the regularity of a horrid clock at
midnight, when one wants to go to sleep.

"Oh," cried Iris, forced, as young people always are, to speak of her
own trouble, "oh, grandfather, he is coming to-night."

"Who is coming to-night, my dear?" and then he listened again for the
ticking of the clock: "Within three weeks--within three weeks." "Who
is coming to-night, my dear?"

He took the cup of tea from her, and sat down with an old man's
deliberation, which springs less from wisdom and the fullness of
thought that from respect to rheumatism.

The iteration of that refrain, "Within three weeks," made him forget
everything, even the trouble of his granddaughter's mind.

"Oh, grandfather, you cannot have forgotten!"

She spoke with the least possible touch of irritation, because she had
been thinking of this thing for a week past, day and night, and it was
a thing of such stupendous interest to her, that it seemed impossible
that anyone who knew of it could forget what was coming.

"No, no." The old man was stimulated into immediate recollection by
the disappointment in her eyes. "No, no, my dear, I have not
forgotten. Your pupil is coming. Mr. Arbuthnot is coming. But, Iris,
child, don't let that worry you. I will see him for you, if you like."

"No; I must see him myself. You see, dear, there is the awful
deception. Oh, how shall I tell him?"

"No deception at all," he said stoutly. "You advertised in your own