doing," answered Miss Marston. "Besides, Mr. Helmer, I don't
choose to go out walking with you of a Sunday evening."

"Why not?"

"For one thing, your mother would not like it. You know she would
not."

"Never mind my mother. She's nothing to you. She can't bite you.
--Ask the dentist. Come, come! that's all nonsense. I shall be at
the stile beyond the turnpike-gate all the afternoon--waiting
till you come."

"The moment I see you--anywhere upon the road--that moment I
shall turn back.--Do you think," she added with half-amused
indignation, "I would put up with having all the gossips of
Testbridge talk of my going out on a Sunday evening with a boy
like you?"

Tom Helmer's face flushed. He caught up the gloves, threw the
price of them on the counter, and walked from the shop, without
even a good night.

"Hullo!" cried George Turnbull, vaulting over the counter, and
taking the place Helmer had just left opposite Mary; "what did
you say to the fellow to send him off like that? If you do hate
the business, you needn't scare the customers, Mary."

"I don't hate the business, you know quite well, George. And if I
did scare a customer," she added, laughing, as she dropped the