ect reflex, I
thought, of Bessie last night--an electric softness under a brooding
cloud.

The little house lay wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell:
no, it would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely
not make me wait. Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would
wait in the porch--she would certainly come down soon.

So I waited, whistling softly to myself as I pushed the withered
leaves about with my stick and drew strange patterns among them. Half
an hour passed.

"I will give her a gentle reminder;" so I gathered a spray from the
honeysuckle, a late bloom among the fast-falling leaves, and aimed
it right at the muslin curtain. The folds parted and it fell into the
room, but instead of the answering face that I looked to see, all was
still again.

"It's very strange," thought I. "Bessie's pique is not apt to last so
long. She must indeed be angry."

And I went over each detail of our last night's talk, from her first
burst of "Take me with you!" to my boggling answers, my fears, so
stupidly expressed, that it would be anything but a picturesque
bridal-trip, and the necessity that there was for rapid traveling and
much musty, old research.

"What a fool I was not to take her then and there! She _is_ myself:
why shouldn't I, then, be selfish? When I do what of all things I want
to, why can't I take it for granted that she will be happy too?" And
a hot flush of shame went over me to think that I had been about to
propose to her, to my own darling girl, that we should be married as
soon as possible _after_ I returned from Europe.

Her love, clearer-sighted, had striven to forestall our separation:
why should we be parted all those weary weeks? why put the sea between
us?

I had accepted all these obstacles as a dreary necessity, never
thinking for the moment that conventional objections might be
overcome, aunts and guardians talked over, and the whole matter
arranged by two people determined on their own sweet will.

What a lumbering, masculine plan was mine! _After I returned from
Europe!_ I grew red and bit my lips with vexation. And now my dear
girl was shy and hurt. How should I win back again that sweet impulse
of confidence?

Presently the household began to stir. I heard unbarring and
unbolting, and craftily retreated to the gate, that I might seem to be
just coming in, to the servant who should open the door.

It was opened by a housemaid--not the Mary of the ni