likely spot, indeed. He was constantly passing to and fro there, he
said. He shouldn't wonder if it were to happen again. His only wonder
was, that it had never happened before.

By this time Ruth had got round on the farther side of her brother, and
had taken his arm. She was squeezing it now, as much as to say 'Are you
going to stop here all day, you dear, old, blundering Tom?'

Tom answered the squeeze as if it had been a speech. 'John,' he said,
'if you'll give my sister your arm, we'll take her between us, and walk
on. I have a curious circumstance to relate to you. Our meeting could
not have happened better.'

Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples
twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh
against the basin's rim, and vanished.

'Tom,' said his friend, as they turned into the noisy street, 'I have a
proposition to make. It is, that you and your sister--if she will so far
honour a poor bachelor's dwelling--give me a great pleasure, and come
and dine with me.'

'What, to-day?' cried Tom.

'Yes, to-day. It's close by, you know. Pray, Miss Pinch, insist upon it.
It will be very disinterested, for I have nothing to give you.'

'Oh! you must not believe that, Ruth,' said Tom. 'He is the most
tremendous fellow, in his housekeeping, that I ever heard of, for a
single man. He ought to be Lord Mayor. Well! what do you say? Shall we
go?'

'If you please, Tom,' rejoined his dutiful little sister.

'But I mean,' said Tom, regarding her with smiling admiration; 'is there
anything you ought to wear, and haven't got? I am sure I don't know,
John; she may not be able to take her bonnet off, for anything I can
tell.'

There was a great deal of laughing at this, and there were divers
compliments from John Westlock--not compliments HE said at least (and
really he was right), but good, plain, honest truths, which no one could
deny. Ruth laughed, and all that, but she made no objection; so it was
an engagement.

'If I had known it a little sooner,' said John, 'I would have tried
another pudding. Not in rivalry; but merely to exalt that famous one. I
wouldn't on any account have had it made with suet.'

'Why not?' asked Tom.

'Because that cookery-book advises suet,' said John Westlock; 'and ours
was made with flour and eggs.'

'Oh good gracious!' cried Tom. 'Ours was made with flour and eggs,
was it? Ha, ha, ha! A beefsteak pudding made with flour and eggs! W