congratulations."

"Will that do?" I whispered as I handed the book to Bessie.

"Not at all," said Bessie scornfully and coldly, tearing out the leaf
as she spoke and crumpling it in her hand.--"Sorry to spoil your book,
Fanny dear, but the sentiment would have spoiled it more. Let us go
home."

As we passed the hotel on that dreary walk home, Fanny would have
left us, but Bessie clung to her and whispered something in a pleading
voice, begging her, evidently, to come home with us.

"If Mr. Munro will take word to papa," she said, indicating that
worthy, who sat on the upper piazza smoking his pipe.

"We will walk on," said Bessie coldly. "Come, Fanny dear."

Strange, thought I as I turned on my heel, this sudden fond intimacy!
Bessie is angry. Why did I never tell her of the ducking? And yet when
I remembered how Fanny had clung to me, how after we had reached
the shore I had been forced to remind her that it was no time for
sentimental gratitude when we both were shivering, I could see why
I had refrained from mentioning it to Bessie until our closer
confidences would allow of it.

No man, unless he be a downright coxcomb, will ever admit to one woman
that another woman has loved him. To his wife--perhaps. But how much
Fanny Meyrick cared for me I had never sought to know. After
the dismal ending of that moonlight boat-row--I had been already