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