"I do not mean to say that, sir. Ah, if you only knew; if I dared
to tell you all that my poor, wretched heart--"

"Well, don't cry so! What is all this ado? I beg your pardon, you
see, if I scolded you. Indeed, I believe you would not, you could
not, make me such vile stuff as this."

"Dear me! I am not crying about that, sir."

"You are not!" and I felt my self-love not a little mortified,
though I forced a smile. "Are you crying, then, because I scolded
you, and yet not about the coffee?"

"Yes, indeed, sir?"

"Ah! then who called you a little deceitful one before?"

"HE did, sir."

"HE did; and who is HE?"

"My lover, sir;" and she hid her face in her little hands.

Afterwards she ingenuously intrusted to my keeping, and I could not
well betray her, a little serio-comic sort of pastoral romance,
which really interested me.



CHAPTER XXIX.