said, drawing up his head, and shaking back his jetty curls: "I dare say
you are laughing at me as a mere boy; but I am older than I look. I am
sure I am much older than you are. Let me see, you are seventeen, I
suppose?"

Helen, getting more and more at her ease, nodded playful assent.

"And I am not far from twenty-one. Ah, you may well look surprised, but
so it is. An hour ago I felt a mere boy; now I shall never feel a boy
again!"

Once more there was a long pause, and before it was broken, they had
gained the very spot in which Helen had lost her friend.

"Why, bless us and save us!" exclaimed a voice "loud as a trumpet," but
not "with a silver sound," "there you are, after all;" and Mrs. Mivers
(husband and umbrella both regained) planted herself full before them.

"Oh, a pretty fright I have been in! And now to see you coming along as
cool as if nothing had happened; as if the humbrella had not lost its
hivory 'andle,--it's quite purvoking. Dear, dear, what we have gone
through! And who is this young gentleman, pray?"

Helen whispered some hesitating explanation, which Mrs. Mivers did not
seem to receive as graciously as Percival, poor fellow, had a right to
expect. She stared him full in the face, and shook her head suspiciously
when she saw him a little confused by the survey. Then, tucking Helen
tightly under her arm, she walked back towards the Haymarket, merely
saying to Percival,--