ll, frozen back to the prosaic, piled up the
stove, and crept into bed, where her waking dreams soon merged into
sleeping ones.

CHAPTER V.

A WOODLAND WALK.

I hope, pretty maid, you won't take it amiss,
If I tell you my reason for asking you this,
I would see you safe home (now the swain was in love),
Of such a companion if you would approve.
Your offer, kind shepherd, is civil, I own,
But I see no great danger in going alone;
Nor yet can I hinder, the road being free
For one as another, for you as for me.

It was Sunday afternoon. Bluebell was on her way to the Maples, and had
not proceeded far when she observed a Robinson Crusoe-looking figure in
one of those grotesque fur caps and impossible hooded blankets that the
fashionable Briton in Canada so fondly affects. She was speculating idly
upon whom it could be.

"Not Mr. Gordon, though the 'Fool's-cap' is like his; and Major Simeon
has one of those. Oh, Captain Du Meresq!"

She bowed rather undecidedly, and then moved on abruptly.

But Bertie did not pass by.

"Are you returning?" asked he. "They can't get on without you. Freddy has
dropped a cinder into his nurse's tea, and set fire to the straw in the
cat's basket."

Bluebell laughed shyly.

"I have been to see mamma. Do not let me bring you out of your way,
Captain Du Meresq,"--for he had turned back with her.

"Oh, I was only going for a walk," said Bertie, innocently,--a harmless
amusement that, without any other object, he was simply incapable of
undertaking. "Hadn't I better see you home; there's a brute of a dog down
there who sprang out at me! I broke my stick across his head, and then,
of course, I had to apologize, being disarmed."

"I know that fierce dog. He belongs to a cabman; but I always speak to
him, and he never attacks me."

"Even a lion itself would flee from a maid in the pride of her purity,"
laughed Bertie. "But, Miss Leigh, must we positively go shivering across
this bleak desert again?--isn't there some sheltered way through the
wood?"

"There certainly is; but it is three miles round, and, I dare say, full
of drifts."

"Never mind, all the better fun. Up this way?"

"Oh, but isn't it late? I think they will be expecting me before."

"There's nobody at home, if that's all," said Bertie. "They have gone to
the Cathedral, and most likely will turn into tea at the Van Calmonts."

The scrambling walk was a temptation, the common hideous and cold