way to the cars."

"Is he going this morning?"

"Yes. Not to return, it appears."

"Not to return?" Her voice seemed hardly to have the energy of a
question in it.

"But I," with a shrug and significant laugh, "am not to allow him to
go. Behold in me an emissary of Love! You; would not have suspected
a Mercury in your William, Catharine?" Within the last month he had
begun to talk down in this fashion to her, accommodating himself to
her childish tastes.

"What is Mercury's errand?"

"Aha! you curious little puss! How a woman does prick her ears at the
mention of a love-story! Though, I suppose, this one is wellnigh its
end. Maria made no secret of it. Doctor McCall, I inferred from what
she said, had been pouring out his troubles in her ear, and she sent
me to bring him back to her with the message that she had found a
way of escape from them. Eh? Did you speak? You did not know _what_,
dear?"

"I did not know that Maria had the right to bring him back. They
are--"

"Engaged? Oh, certainly. At least--It is an old attachment, and Maria
is such a woman to manage, you know! Is that the tea-pot, Jane? Just