entertained. Carlisle poured, and thought that in ten minutes, or at
most fifteen, this would be all over: if the present _tête-à-tête_ was
to lead to another, and so on through a gorgeous climacteric sequence,
it was now, or it was never. Here was an exciting thought, with
stage-fright possibilities to some; but Carlisle, confident through her
many testimonials, merely smiled prettily and asked Mr. Canning if he
would not take one or more of the cunning little pink cakes. It
appeared that Mr. Canning would; pink, he said, was his color.

"I believe we parted rather suddenly," said Carlisle, continuing to
smile a little to herself, "the last time I had this pleasure. Do you
remember?"

He desired to know if she could possibly conceive his memory to be so
short.

"I was immensely mortified," said she, "to learn that I had given you a
cold--it was a cold, wasn't it?--or whooping-cough?--by keeping you so
long in the night air that evening. I've worried so about it all these
weeks. _Am_ I too late to inquire?"

"I kick myself to have gone away leaving you anxious," said Canning,
with entire gravity. "The attack, as it chanced, was transitory. There
was no coughing--whooping or otherwise. The trouble was purely
localized, in the head, and--"

"In the imagination, might one almost say?"

"In the head. You must have heard somewhere of cold in the head? A
well-known though unfashionable complaint, throughout the north. I, on