of among
people who should never have been allowed to hear her name. But
perhaps, after all, no more than those two initials were known in
Burton Crescent. From the tone which was now used in naming them,
it was sufficiently manifest that Amelia considered herself to be
wronged by their very existence.

"L. S. D.," said Johnny, attempting the line of a witty, gay young
spendthrift. "That's my love--pounds, shillings, and pence; and a
very coy mistress she is."

"Nonsense, sir. Don't talk to me in that way. As if I didn't know
where your heart was. What right had you to speak to me if you had an
L. D. down in the country?"

It should be here declared on behalf of poor John Eames that he had
not ever spoken to Amelia--he had not spoken to her in any such
phrase as her words seemed to imply. But then he had written to her
a fatal note of which we will speak further before long, and that
perhaps was quite as bad,--or worse.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Johnny. But the laugh was assumed, and not
assumed with ease.

"Yes, sir; it's a laughing matter to you, I dare say. It is very easy
for a man to laugh under such circumstances;--that is to say, if he
is perfectly heartless,--if he's got a stone inside his bosom instead
of flesh and blood. Some men are made of stone, I know, and are
troubled with no feelings."

"What is it you want me to say? You pretend to know all about it, and
it wouldn't be civil in me to contradict you."

"What is it I want? You know very well what I want; or rather, I
don't want anything. What is it to me? It is nothing to me about L.
D. You can go down to Allington and do what you like for me. Only I
hate such ways."

"What ways, Amelia?"

"What ways! Now, look here, Johnny: I'm not going to make a fool of
myself for any man. When I came home here three months ago--and I
wish I never had;"--she paused here a moment, waiting for a word of
tenderness; but as the word of tenderness did not come, she went
on--"but when I did come home, I didn't think there was a man in all
London could make me care for him,--that I didn't. And now you're
going away, without so much as hardly saying a word to me." And then
she brought out her handkerchief.

"What am I to say, when you keep on scolding me all the time?"

"Scolding you!--And me too! No, Johnny, I ain't scolding you, and
don't mean to. If it's to be all over between us, say the word, and
I'll take myself away out of the house before you come back aga