'Engaged--to--Miss Galloway!' be repeated, with genuine surprise and annoyance. 'Not at all. Who on earth put that into your little head?' he added, with a laugh. 'Mrs. Wodrow always told me so,' replied Mary, covered with confusion, but feeling very happy nevertheless. 'Silly, gossiping old woman! No, Miss Wellwood: I am, thank Heaven, a free man--as yet.' Here was a revelation--if true. He was gazing on her now with eyes that were full of admiration and ardour, while the clasp of his hand seemed to infuse through her veins some of the force and love that inspired him. In the glance they exchanged each read the other's secret, and he drew her towards him and kissed her. 'There are moments in life,' it is said, 'when joy makes us afraid: and this was one'--to Mary at least, and she shrank back--all the more quickly and confusedly that a visitor was approaching; and a half-suppressed malediction hovered on the lips of Colville as the portly Mrs. Wodrow was ushered in--ushered in at that moment! He rose with annoyance, and still retaining Mary's hand in his, said hurriedly, and in a low tone, with a little laugh that was assumed to cover her confusion, 'Promise me that in the matter of leaving Birkwoodbrae you will do no more till I see you again _to-morrow_.' 'I promise,' replied Mary, trembling very much, and scarcely knowing what she said; and, bowing to Mrs. Wodrow, Colville took his departure, while the pressure of his hand seemed to linger on Mary's heart. 'Who does not know,' says the authoress of 'Nadine,' 'the magnetic thrill--the strange and subduing sense of soul-communion, which sometimes lingers in a hand-clasp;' and with this thrill in her veins Mary addressed herself to the task of talking commonplace to old Mrs. Wodrow. He had been on the brink of a proposal without doubt, yet none had been made. CHAPTER XIX; THE DEPARTURE. To-morrow came, and the next day, and the next, but there was no sign of, or letter from, Captain Colville, so Mary resumed her arrangements all the more briskly and bitterly. Ellinor had heard of his interview with Mary, and felt much tender interest and concern. Had he spoken of Sir Redmond Sleath, or his movements, she marvelled sorely; but failed to ask. Meanwhile May's recent thoughts were of a very mingled and somewhat painful kind. The memory of his great tenderness of manner, of the kiss he had snatched, and the assertion that he was not the _fiancé_ of Blanche Galloway were all ever before her in constant iteration, with the consciousness that no distinct avowal had preceded, and no proposal had followed the episode. A kiss! Their lips had met but once, yet the memory of such a meeting often abides for ever.