ft.

"_That_ way," answered the girl, pointing left.

The impatient youth turned hastily to leave.

"Please, sir--" said the domestic.

"Well," said Edgar, stopping.

"You're sure, sir--" she stopped.

"Well?--go on."

"That you wouldn't like to 'ave a cup of tea?"

"Child," said Edgar, as he turned finally away, "you're mad--as mad as a
March hare."

"Thank you, sir."

The small domestic shut the door and retired to the regions below,
where, taking the pots and pans and black-beetles into her confidence,
she shrieked with delight for full ten minutes, and hugged herself.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

A CLIMAX IS REACHED.

When Edgar Berrington discovered the cottage by the sea, and ascertained
that Miss Pritty was within, he gave his name, and was ushered into the
snug little room under the name of Mr Briggington. Aileen gave a
particularly minute, but irrepressible and quite inaudible scream; Mr
Hazlit sat bolt up in his chair, as if he had seen a ghost; and Miss
Pritty--feeling, somehow, that her diplomacy had not become a brilliant
success--shrank within herself, and wished it were to-morrow.

Their various expressions, however, were as nothing compared with
Edgar's blazing surprise.

"Mr Hazlit," he stammered, "pray pardon my sudden intrusion at so
unseasonable an hour; but, really, I was not aware that--did you not get
my telegram, aunt?"

He turned abruptly to Miss Pritty.

"Why ye-es, but I thought that you--in fact--I could not imagine that--"

"Never mind explanations just now," said Mr Hazlit, recovering himself,
and rising with a bland smile, "you are welcome, Mr Berrington; no hour
is unseasonable for one to whom we owe so much."

They shook hands and laughed; then Edgar shook hands with Aileen and
blushed, no doubt because _she_ blushed, then he saluted his aunt, and
took refuge in being very particular about her receipt of the telegram.
This threw Miss Pritty into a state of unutterable confusion, because of
her efforts to tell the truth and conceal the truth at one and the same
time. After this they spent a very happy evening together, during the
course of which Mr Hazlit took occasion to ask Edgar to accompany him
into a little pigeon-hole of a room which, in deference to a few books
that dwelt there, was styled the library.

"Mr Berrington," he said, sitting down and pointing to a chair, "be
seated. I wish to have a little private conversation with you. We are
both practical