or fifty pounds. Eh, what!" cried he,
stooping and rubbing his leg; "I told you to say, 'Stop her, Master
Jack,' when you wanted to take weigh off, but I never said, 'Kick my
shins.'"

This absurd exclamation, and the laugh it provoked, was a lucky
diversion, and they arose from table without another thought on Marion's
epistle.

"Has Nelly shown you Marion's note?" asked Jack, as he strolled with
Julia through the garden.

"No, and it is perhaps the only letter I ever knew her to get without
handing me to read."

"I suspect, with Cutbill, that we all of us catch it in that pleasant
document."

"_You_ perhaps are the only one who has escaped."

"As for me, I am not even remembered. Well, I'll bear even that, if I
can be sure of a little sympathy in another quarter."

"Master Jack, you ask for too many professions. I have told you already
to-day, and I don't mean to repeat it for a week, that you are not
odious to me."

"But will you not remember, Julia, the long months of banishment I have
suffered? Will you not bear in mind that if I have lived longingly for
this moment, it is cruel now to dash it with a doubt."

"But it is exactly what I am not doing! I have given you fully as
much encouragement as is good for you. I have owned--and it is a rash
confession for a girl to make at any time--that I care for you more than
any part of our prospects for the future could warrant, and if I go one
step further there will be nothing for it but for you to buy a bragotza
and turn fisherman, and for me to get a basket and sell pilchards in the
piazza."

"You need n't taunt me with my poverty, I feel it bitterly enough
already. Nor have you any right to think me unable to win a living."

"There, again, you wrong me. I only said, Do not, in your impatience to
reach your goal, make it not worth the winning. Don't forget what I told
you about long engagements. A man's share of them is the worst."

"But you love me, Julia?" said he, drawing her close to him.

"How tiresome you are!" said she, trying to free herself from his arm.

"Let me once--only once--hear you say this, and I swear to you, Julia,
I 'll never tease you more."

"Well, then if I must--"

More was not spoken, for the lips were pressed by a rapturous kiss, as
he clasped her to his heart, muttering, "My own, my own!"

"I declare there is Nelly," cried Julia, wresting herself from his
embrace, and starting off; not, however, towards Ellen, but in the