She was a pretty child, with a peculiar boyish frankness of glance and manner, and a refinement of feature that fascinated Mr. Hamlin, who, fond as he was of all childhood, had certain masculine preferences for good looks. She seemed to be struggling with a desire to laugh when she entered, and when Jack turned towards her with extended hands she held up her own warningly, and closing the door behind her cautiously, said, in a demure whisper-- "She'll come down as soon as she can slip past Madame's door." "Who?" asked Jack. "Sophy." "Who's Sophy?" asked Jack, seriously. He had never known the name of his Dulcinea. In the dim epistolatory region of sentiment she had existed only as "The Blue Moselle," so called from the cerulean hue of her favourite raiment, and occasionally, in moments of familiar endearment, as "Mosey." "Come, now, pretend you don't know, will you?" said Olly, evading the kiss which Jack always had ready for childhood. "If I was her, I wouldn't have anything to say to you after that!" she added, with that ostentatious chivalry of the sex towards each other, in the presence of their common enemy. "Why, she saw you from the window when you first came this morning, when you went back again and shaved off your moustache; she knew you. And you don't know her! It's mean, ain't it?--they'll grow again, won't they?"--Miss Olly referred to the mustachios and not the affections! Jack was astonished and alarmed. In his anxiety to evade or placate the duenna, he had never thought of her charge--his sweetheart. Here was a dilemma! "Oh yes!" said Jack hastily, with a well simulated expression of arch affection, "Sophy--of course--that's my little game! But I've got a note for you too, my dear," and he handed Olly the few lines that Gabriel had hastily scrawled. He watched her keenly, almost breathlessly, as she read them. To his utter bewilderment she laid the note down indifferently and said, "That's like Gabe--the old simpleton!" "But you're goin' to do what he says," asked Mr. Hamlin, "ain't you?" "No," said Olly, promptly, "I ain't! Why, Lord! Mr. Hamlin, you don't know that man; why, he does this sort o' thing every week!" Perceiving Jack stare, she went on, "Why, only last week, didn't he send to me to meet him out on the corner of the street, and he my own brother, instead o' comin' here, ez he hez a right to do. Go to him at Wingdam? No! ketch me!" "But suppose he can't come," continued Mr. Hamlin. "Why can't he come? I tell you, it's just foolishness and the meanest kind o' bashfulness. Jes because there happened to be a young lady here from San Francisco, Rosey Ringround, who was a little took with the old fool. If he could come to Wingdam, why couldn't he come here,--that's what I want to know?" "Will you let me see that note?" asked Hamlin. Olly handed him the note, with the remark, "He don't spell well--and he won't let me teach him--the old Muggins!" Hamlin took it and read as follows:--