She gave a little low, quiet laugh, perhaps as much at the energy as at the words of his speech. “After all,” said she, “a wetting is no great misfortune; the worst punishment of my offence was one that I never contemplated.” “What do you mean?” asked he. “Doing penance for it in this costume,” said she, drawing out the stiff folds of an old brocaded silk, and displaying a splendor of flowers that might have graced a peacock's tail; “I never so much as dreamed of this!” There was something so comic in the way she conveyed her distress that he laughed outright. She joined him; and they were at once at their ease together. “I think Miss Barrington called you Mr. Conyers,” said she; “and if so, I have the happiness of feeling that my gratitude is bestowed where already there has been a large instalment of the sentiment. It is you who have been so generous and so kind to my poor brother.” “Has he told you, then, what we have been planning together?” “He has told me all that _you_ had planned out for him,” said she, with a very gracious smile, which very slightly colored her cheek, and gave great softness to her expression. “My only fear was that the poor boy should have lost his head completely, and perhaps exaggerated to himself your intentions towards him; for, after all, I can scarcely think--” “What is it that you can scarcely think?” asked he, after a long pause. “Not to say,” resumed she, unheeding his question, “that I cannot imagine how this came about. What could have led him to tell _you_--a perfect stranger to him--his hopes and fears, his struggles and his sorrows? How could you--by what magic did you inspire him with that trustful confidence which made him open his whole heart before you? Poor Tom, who never before had any confessor than myself!” “Shall I tell you how it came about? It was talking of _you!_” “Of me! talking of me!” and her cheek now flushed more deeply. “Yes, we had rambled on over fifty themes, not one of which seemed to attach him strongly, till, in some passing allusion to his own cares and difficulties, he mentioned one who has never ceased to guide and comfort him; who shared not alone his sorrows, but his hard hours of labor, and turned away from her own pleasant paths to tread the dreary road of toil beside him.” “I think he might have kept all this to himself,” said she, with a tone of almost severity. “How could he? How was it possible to tell me his story, and not touch upon what imparted the few tints of better fortune that lighted it? I'm certain, besides, that there is a sort of pride in revealing how much of sympathy and affection we have derived from those better than ourselves, and I could see that he was actually vain of what you had done for him.” “I repeat, he might have kept this to himself. But let us leave this matter; and now tell me,--for I own I can hardly trust my poor brother's triumphant tale,--tell me seriously what the plan is?”