Of other lovers I have scant knowledge, but the one I know was wont to cherish the memory of things his love had said and how she had said them; with what a pretty tilt to her chin, with what a daring shyness of the eyes, with what a fine colour and impetuous audacity she had done this or looked that. He was wont in advance to plan out conversations, to decide that he would tell her some odd brain fancy and watch her while he told it. Many an hour he spent in the fairy land of imagination; many a one he dreamed away in love castles built of fancied rambles in enchanted woods, of sweet talks in which he always said and did the right thing; destined alas! never to pass from mind to speech, for if ever tongue essayed the telling it faltered some fatuous abortion as little like love's dream as Caliban resembled Ariel. Fresh from the brave world of day-dreams, still smiling happily from some whimsical conceit as well as with anticipation of Aileen's gladness at sight of me, I passed through the courtyard and into the ordinary. A hubbub at the foot of the stairway attracted me. A gaping crowd was gathered there about three central figures. My weasened pippin-face of the malicious grin was one of them; a broad-shouldered, fair-faced and very much embarrassed young officer in the King's uniform stood beside him; and from the stairway some three steps up Aileen, plainly frightened, fronted them and answered questions in her broken English. "I am desolated to distress you, madam," the boy officer was saying, "but this man has laid an information with me that there is a rebel in your party, one who was in Manchester with the Pretender's force some months since. It will be necessary that I have speech with him." "There iss no rebel with me, sir. The gentleman with whom I travel iss of most approved loyalty," she faltered. "Ah! He will no doubt be able to make that clear to me. May I ask where he is at present?" Aileen went white as snow. Her distress was apparent to all. "Sir, I do entreat you to believe that what I say iss true," she cried whitely. The little rat in fustian broke out screaming that he would swear to me among ten thousand: as to the girl she must be the rebel's accomplice, his mistress mayhap. Aileen, her big, anxious eyes fixed on the officer, shrank back against the stair rail at her accuser's word. The lad commanded him sharply to be quiet, but with the utmost respect let Aileen understand that he must have talk with me. All this one swift glance had told me, and at this opportune moment I sauntered up, Volney's snuff-box in my hand. If the doubt possessed me as to how the devil I was to win free from this accusation, I trust no shadow of fear betrayed itself in my smirking face. "Egad, here's a gathering of the clans. Hope I'm not _de trop_," I simpered. The lieutenant bowed to me with evident relief.