ich the sobriety of old age
makes me blush abed think of. Banks had just concluded a discreet
discourse upon my accomplishment of the day before, and had left for my
newspapers, when he came running back with the information that Miss
Manners would see my honour that day. There was no note. Between us
we made my toilet in a jiffy, and presently I was walking in at the
Manners's door in an amazing hurry, and scarcely waited for a direction.
But as I ran up the stairs, I heard the tinkle of the spinet, and the
notes of an old, familiar tune fell upon my ears. The words rose in my
head with the cadence.

"Love me little, love me long,
Is the burthen of my song,
Love that is too hot and strong
Runneth soon to waste."

That simple air, already mellowed by an hundred years, had always been
her favourite. She used to sing it softly to herself as we roamed the
woods and fields of the Eastern Shore. Instinctively I paused at the
dressing-room door. Nay, my dears, you need not cry out, such was the
custom of the times. A dainty bower it was, filled with the perfume of
flowers, and rosy cupids disporting on the ceiling; and china and silver
and gold filigree strewn about, with my tea-cups on the table. The
sunlight fell like a halo round Dorothy's head, her hands strayed over
the keys, and her eyes were far away. She had not heard me. I remember
her dress,--a silk with blue cornflowers on a light ground, and the
flimsiest of lace caps resting on her hair. I thought her face paler;
but beyond that she did not show her illness.

She looked up, and perceived me, I thought, with a start. "So it is
you!" she said demurely enough; "you are come at last to give an account
of yourself."

"Are you better, Dorothy?" I asked earnestly.

"Why should you think that I have been ill?" she replied, her fingers
going back to the spinet. "It is a mistake, sir. Dr. James has given me
near a gross of his infamous powders, and is now exploiting another cure.
I have been resting from the fatigues of London, while you have been
wearing yourself out."

"Dr. James himself told me your condition was serious," I said.

"Of course," said she; "the worse the disease, the more remarkable the
cure, the more sought after the physician. When will you get over your
provincial simplicity?"

I saw there was nothing to be got out of her while in this baffling
humour. I wondered what devil impelled a woman to write on