He stepped back somewhat offended at this hasty repulsion, and his features again assumed the cold, proud expression, which had not left hers for a moment. Mr. Alison evidently was not the man to beg for caresses which were not freely granted him. An approaching step in the anteroom demanded that both should immediately resume their company manners; the young lady as before, sat in the arm chair, and Alison opposite her, when the person who had thus announced his coming, entered the parlor. He was a small, elderly man with gray hair and sharp, penetrating eyes from which gleamed an inconcealable irony, as he saw the young couple sitting there so much like strangers. "The physician is about to drive away, Miss Jane. You wished to speak with him," he said. Jane rose hastily. "Excuse me, Mr. Alison, I must go to my father. I will tell him of your visit, this evening." She reached him her hand. A significant pressure, a glance of deep, calm, mutual understanding, then they parted with a hasty adieu, and Jane left the room. As the door of the ante-room closed behind her, the last comer stepped up to Alison, and laid a hand upon his shoulder, "I congratulate you!" The young man turned quickly around. "For what?" he asked sharply. "For your betrothal." Alison frowned. "It appears, Mr. Atkins, that you have chosen to play the spy." Atkins took this reproach very unconcernedly. "Possibly! But you ought to know, Henry, that I do not belong to those disinterested persons from whom the affair is to be kept secret." The young man's forehead cleared somewhat. "You certainly are an exception, and so--" "And so, you accept my congratulations without further hesitation," added Atkins. "But you two got through the affair quickly enough. 'Will you have me? I will have you,'--all right. 'The wedding shall be a year from now!'--all short, smooth, clear, without much eloquence or sentimentalism, quite to Miss Jane's taste. But our deceased Mrs. Forest would have thought quite differently of such a betrothal." Alison's lips curled in scorn. "If Miss Alison had resembled her mother, I should scarcely have sought her hand," he said. "There you are right!" replied Atkins dryly. "She was not to my taste either, always ill, always inclined to tears and scenes, full of sentimentality and extravagances,--a real German woman, she died of homesickness at last. Happily the daughter has inherited none of this nonsense. She is just like her father." "I know it! And no one will accuse Mr. Forest of an excess of sentimentality."