wned portentously as
he looked from the one to the other, and said slowly, "_Miss_ Kennedy,
_Mr_ Somerville!" then turning to his son, remarked, "That's something
new, Charley lad; that girl is _Miss_ Kennedy, and that youth there is
_Mr_ Somerville!"

Charley laughed loudly at this sally, especially when the old gentleman
followed it up with a series of contortions of the left cheek, meant for
violent winking.

"Right, father, right; it won't do here. We don't know anybody but Kate
and Harry in this house."

Harry laughed in his own genuine style at this.

"Well, Kate be it, with all my heart," said he; "but, really, at first
she seemed so unlike the Kate of former days that I could not bring
myself to call her so."

"Humph!" said Mr Kennedy. "But come, boys, with me to my smoking-room,
and let's have a talk over a pipe, while Kate looks after dinner."
Giving Charley another squeeze of the hand and Harry a pat on the
shoulder, the old gentleman put on his cap (with the peak behind), and
led the way to his glass divan in the garden.

It is perhaps unnecessary for us to say that Kate Kennedy and Harry
Somerville had, within the last hour, fallen deeply, hopelessly,
utterly, irrevocably, and totally in love with each other. They did not
merely fall up to the ears in love. To say that they fell _over_ head
and ears in it would be, comparatively speaking, to say nothing. In
fact they did not _fall_ into it at all. They went deliberately
backwards, took a long race, sprang high into the air, turned completely
round, and went down head first into the flood, descending to a depth
utterly beyond the power of any deep-sea lead to fathom, or of any human
mind adequately to appreciate. Up to that day Kate had thought of Harry
as the hilarious youth who used to take every opportunity he could of
escaping from the counting-room and hastening to spend the afternoon in
rambling through the woods with her and Charley. But the instant she
saw him a man, with a bright, cheerful countenance, on which rough
living and exposure to frequent peril had stamped unmistakable lines of
energy and decision, and to which recent illness had imparted a
captivating touch of sadness--the moment she beheld this, and the
undeniable scrap of whisker that graced his cheeks, and the slight
_shade_ that rested on his upper lip, her heart leaped violently into
her throat, where it stuck hard and fast, like a stranded ship on a
lee-shore.

In