w morning!"

"Is that all?" returned Arnold.

Anne looked up at him, quickly and angrily. No! he was quite unconscious
of having said any thing that could offend her. His rough masculine
sense broke its way unconsciously through all the little feminine
subtleties and delicacies of his companion, and looked the position
practically in the face for what it was worth, and no more. "Where's the
embarrassment?" he asked, pointing to the bedroom door. "There's your
room, all ready for you. And here's the sofa, in this room, all ready
for _me._ If you had seen the places I have slept in at sea--!"

She interrupted him, without ceremony. The places he had slept in, at
sea, were of no earthly importance. The one question to consider, was
the place he was to sleep in that night.

"If you must stay," she rejoined, "can't you get a room in some other
part of the house?"

But one last mistake in dealing with her, in her present nervous
condition, was left to make--and the innocent Arnold made it. "In some
other part of the house?" he repeated, jestingly. "The landlady would be
scandalized. Mr. Bishopriggs would never allow it!"

She rose, and stamped her foot impatiently on the floor. "Don't
joke!" she exclaimed. "This is no laughing matter." She paced the room
excitedly. "I don't like it! I don't like it!"

Arnold looked after her, with a stare of boyish wonder.

"What puts you out so?" he asked. "Is it the storm?"

She threw herself on the sofa again. "Yes," she said, shortly. "It's the
storm."

Arnold's inexhaustible good-nature was at once roused to activity again.

"Shall we have the candles," he suggested, "and shut the weather out?"
She turned irritably on the sofa, without replying. "I'll promise to go
away the first thing in the morning!" he went on. "Do try and take it
easy--and don't be angry with me. Come! come! you wouldn't turn a dog
out, Miss Silvester, on such a night as this!"

He was irresistible. The most sensitive woman breathing could not
have accused him of failing toward her in any single essential of
consideration and respect. He wanted tact, poor fellow--but who could
expect him to have learned that always superficial (and sometimes
dangerous) accomplishment, in the life he had led at sea? At the sight
of his honest, pleading face, Anne recovered possession of her gentler
and sweeter self. She made her excuses for her irritability with a grace
that enchanted him. "We'll have a pleasant evening