"I can't remember saying anything as horrid as that."

"Well, you couldn't, you know," she said, and put out the tip of
a little slipper.

"I thought all the while it was to be Captain Cartwright--that
Englishman with the eyeglass."

"I thought so, too."

"I read of the engagement in the papers, and I can not recollect
that it was ever contradicted or anything."

"Oh, it wasn't," she said. "Ax least, not till later--lots
later."

"I suppose I ought to hurriedly talk about something else," I
remarked.

"You needn't feel like that at all," she returned. "The captain
and I are very good friends--only be doesn't play in my yard any
more."

"I can't remember Gerard Malcolm very well," I went on. "Wasn't
he rather tall and thin, with a big nose and a hidden-away sister
who was supposed to be an invalid?"

"That's one way of describing him."