'That you are in love.'

'I don't admit it, sir. Who told you so?'

'Nobody. Only I put two and two together. Now take my advice. Beware
of lovers! They are a bad lot, and bring young women to tears.'

'Some do, I dare say. But some don't.'

'And you think that in your particular case the latter alternative will
hold good? We generally think we shall be lucky ourselves, though all
the world before us, in the same situation, have been otherwise.'

'O yes, or we should die outright of despair.'

'Well, I don't think you will be lucky in your case.'

'Please how do you know so much, since my case has not yet arrived?'
asked Tabitha, tossing her head a little disdainfully, but less than she
might have done if he had not obtained a charter for his discourse by
giving her the bracelet.

'Fie, Tabitha!'

'I tell you it has not arrived!' she said, with some anger. 'I have not
got a lover, and everybody knows I haven't, and it's an insinuating thing
for you to say so!'

Louis laughed, thinking how natural it was that a girl should so
emphatically deny circumstances that would not bear curious inquiry.

'Why, of course I meant myself,' he said soothingly. 'So, then, you will
not accept me?'

'I didn't know you meant yourself,' she replied. 'But I won't accept
you. And I think you ought not to jest on such subjects.'

'Well, perhaps not. However, don't let the Bishop see your bracelet, and
all will be well. But mind, lovers are deceivers.'

Tabitha laughed, and they parted, the girl entering the church. She had
been feeling almost certain that, having accidentally found the bracelet
somewhere, he had presented it in a whim to her as the first girl he met.
Yet now she began to have momentary doubts whether he had not been
labouring under a mistake, and had imagined her to be the owner. The
bracelet was not valuable; it was, in fact, a mere toy,--the pair of
which this was one being a little present made to Lady Constantine by
Swithin on the day of their marriage; and she had not worn them with
sufficient frequency out of doors for Tabitha to recognize either as
positively her ladyship's. But when, out of sight of the blower, the
girl momentarily tried it on, in a corner by the organ, it seemed to her
that the ornament was possibly Lady Constantine's. Now that the pink
beads shone before her eyes on her own arm she remembered having seen a
bracelet with just such an effect gracing the wrist of Lady