As my reader has divined, Rosa was preparing the comedy of a cool
reception; but looking up, she saw his pale cheek tinted with a lover's
beautiful joy at the bare sight of her, and his soft eye so divine with
love, that she had not the heart to chill him. She gave him her hand
kindly, and smiled brightly on him instead of remonstrating. She lost
nothing by it, for the very first thing he did was to excuse himself
eagerly. "I am behind time: the fact is, just as I was mounting my
horse, a poor man came to the gate to consult me. He had a terrible
disorder I have sometimes succeeded in arresting--I attack the cause
instead of the symptoms, which is the old practice--and so that detained
me. You forgive me?"

"Of course. Poor man!--only you said you wanted to see papa, and he
always goes out at two."

When she had been betrayed into saying this, she drew in suddenly, and
blushed with a pretty consciousness.

"Then don't let me lose another minute," said the lover. "Have you
prepared him for--for--what I am going to have the audacity to say?"

Rosa answered, with some hesitation, "I MUST have--a little. When I
refused Colonel Bright--you need not devour my hand quite--he is forty."

Her sentence ended, and away went the original topic, and grammatical
sequence along with it. Christopher Staines recaptured them both. "Yes,
dear, when you refused Colonel Bright"--

"Well, papa was astonished; for everybody says the colonel is a most