house till I return?"

"Yes, I promise that."

"And if it be as I fear, you will then let me counsel with and advise
you?"

"Heaven help me, if so! Whom else should I trust to? Go, go!"

Kenelm once more found himself in the streets, beneath the mingled light
of gas-lamps and the midsummer moon. He walked on mechanically till he
reached the extremity of the town. There he halted, and seating himself
on a milestone, indulged in these meditations:--

"Kenelm, my friend, you are in a still worse scrape than I thought you
were an hour ago. You have evidently now got a woman on your hands. What
on earth are you to do with her? A runaway woman, who, meaning to run
off with somebody else--such are the crosses and contradictions in human
destiny--has run off with you instead. What mortal can hope to be safe?
The last thing I thought could befall me when I got up this morning was
that I should have any trouble about the other sex before the day was
over. If I were of an amatory temperament, the Fates might have some
justification for leading me into this snare, but, as it is, those
meddling old maids have none. Kenelm, my friend, do you think you ever
can be in love? and, if you were in love, do you think you could be a
greater fool than you are now?"

Kenelm had not decided this knotty question in the conference held with
himself, when a light and soft strain of music came upon his ear. It was
but from a stringed instrument, and might have sounded thin and tinkling
but for the stillness of the night, and that peculiar addition of
fulness which music acquires when it is borne along a tranquil air.
Presently a voice in song was heard from the distance accompanying
the instrument. It was a man's voice, a mellow and a rich voice, but
Kenelm's ear could not catch the words. Mechanically he moved on towards
the quarter from which the sounds came, for Kenelm Chillingly had music
in his soul, though he was not quite aware of it himself. He saw before
him a patch of greensward, on which grew a solitary elm with a seat
for wayfarers beneath it. From this sward the ground receded in a wide
semicircle bordered partly by shops, partly by the tea-gardens of a
pretty cottage-like tavern. Round the tables scattered throughout the
gardens were grouped quiet customers, evidently belonging to the class
of small tradespeople or superior artisans. They had an appearance of
decorous respectability, and were listening intently to the music. So