it very strange that you should
tell him your age, like that."

"I suppose I was absent-minded. Yes! I know it was silly, I don't know
why I said it. Do you want to know his name? I'll go and see. It must be
on the board by this time, as he is stopping here."

She rose and was going, when her mother called her back.

"Clare! Wait till he is gone, at all events! Fancy, if he saw you!"

"Oh! He won't see me! If he comes that way I'll go into the office and
buy stamps."

Clare went in and looked over the square board with its many little
slips for the names of the guests. Some were on visiting cards and some
were written in the large, scrawling, illiterate hand of the head
waiter. Some belonged to people who were already gone. It looked well,
in the little hotel, to have a great many names on the list. Some
seconds passed before Clare found that of the new-comer.

"Mr. Brook Johnstone."

Brook was his first name, then. It was uncommon. She looked at it
fixedly. There was no address on the small, neatly engraved card. While
she was looking at it a door opened quietly behind her, in the opposite
side of the corridor. She paid no attention to it for a moment; then,
hearing no footsteps, she instinctively turned. Brook Johnstone was
standing on the threshold watching her. She blushed violently, in her
annoyance, for he could not doubt but that she was looking for his name.
He saw and understood, and came forward naturally, with a smile. He had
a stick in his hand.

"That's me," he said, with a little laugh, tapping his card on the
board with the head of his stick. "If I'd had an ounce of manners I
should have managed to tell you who I was by this time. Won't you excuse
me, and take this for an introduction? Johnstone--with an E at the
end--Scotch, you know."

"Thanks," answered Clare, recovering from her embarrassment. "I'll tell
my mother." She hesitated a moment. "And that's us," she added, laughing
rather nervously and pointing out one of the cards. "How grammatical we
are, aren't we?" she laughed, while he stooped and read the name which
chanced to be at the bottom of the board.

"Well--what should one say? 'That's we.' It sounds just as badly. And
you can't say 'we are that,' can you? Besides, there's no one to hear
us, so it makes no difference. I don't suppose that you--you and Mrs.
Bowring--would care to go for a walk, would you?"

"No," answered Clare, with sudden coldness. "I don't think so, thank
you.