ckly made this was the one that was
most to the point. There was a degree of awkwardness, after a minute, in
the way we were planted there, though the apprehension of it was
doubtless not in the least with him.

'How is your mother this morning?' I asked.

'You had better go down and see.'

'Not till Miss Mavis is tired of me.'

She said nothing to this and I made her walk again. For some minutes she
remained silent; then, rather unexpectedly, she began: 'I've seen you
talking to that lady who sits at our table--the one who has so many
children.'

'Mrs. Peck? Oh yes, I have talked with her.'

'Do you know her very well?'

'Only as one knows people at sea. An acquaintance makes itself. It
doesn't mean very much.'

'She doesn't speak to me--she might if she wanted.'

'That's just what she says of you--that you might speak to her.'

'Oh, if she's waiting for that----!' said my companion, with a laugh.
Then she added--'She lives in our street, nearly opposite.'

'Precisely. That's the reason why she thinks you might speak; she has
seen you so often and seems to know so much about you.'

'What does she know about me?'

'Ah, you must ask her--I can't tell you!'

'I don't care what she knows,' said my young lady. After a moment she
went on--'She must have seen that I'm not very sociable.' And
then--'What are you laughing at?'

My laughter was for an instant irrepressible--there was something so
droll in the way she had said that.

'Well, you are not sociable and yet you are. Mrs. Peck is, at any rate,
and thought that ought to make it easy for you to enter into
conversation with her.'

'Oh, I don't care for her conversation--I know what it amounts to.' I
made no rejoinder--I scarcely knew what rejoinder to make--and the girl
went on, 'I know what she thinks and I know what she says.' Still I was
silent, but the next moment I saw that my delicacy had been wasted, for
Miss Mavis asked, 'Does she make out that she knows Mr. Porterfield?'

'No, she only says that she knows a lady who knows him.'

'Yes, I know--Mrs. Jeremie. Mrs. Jeremie's an idiot!' I was not in a
position to controvert this, and presently my young lady said she would
sit down. I left her in her chair--I saw that she preferred it--and
wandered to a distance. A few minutes later I met Jasper again, and he
stopped of his own accord and said to me--

'We shall be in about six in the evening, on the eleventh day--they
promise it.'

'If noth