to say, if it was, as I suppose, that she and you had no particular acquaintance.' Isopel was now silent for some time. 'What are you thinking of?' said I. 'I was thinking,' said Belle, 'how exceedingly kind it was of you to get everything in readiness for me, though you did not know that I should come.' 'I had a presentiment that you would come,' said I; 'but you forget that I have prepared the kettle for you before, though it was true I was then certain that you would come.' 'I had not forgotten your doing so, young man,' said Belle; 'but I was beginning to think that you were utterly selfish, caring for nothing but the gratification of your own strange whims.' 'I am very fond of having my own way,' said I, 'but utterly selfish I am not, as I dare say I shall frequently prove to you. You will often find the kettle boiling when you come home.' 'Not heated by you,' said Isopel, with a sigh. 'By whom else?' said I; 'surely you are not thinking of driving me away?' 'You have as much right here as myself,' said Isopel, 'as I have told you before; but I must be going myself.' 'Well,' said I, 'we can go together; to tell you the truth, I am rather tired of this place.' 'Our paths must be separate,' said Belle. 'Separate,' said I, 'what do you mean? I shan't let you go alone, I shall go with you; and you know the road is as free to me as to you; besides, you can't think of parting company with me, considering how much you would lose by doing so; remember that you scarcely know anything of the Armenian language; now, to learn Armenian from me would take you twenty years.' "Belle faintly smiled. 'Come,' said I, 'take another cup of tea.' Belle took another cup of tea, and yet another; we had some indifferent conversation, after which I arose and gave her donkey a considerable feed of corn. Belle thanked me, shook me by the hand, and then went to her own tabernacle, and I returned to mine." He torments her once more with Armenian and makes her speak in such a way that the reader sees--what he himself did not then see--that she was too sick with love for banter. She bade him farewell with the same transparent significance on the next day, when he was off early to a fair. "I waved my hand towards her. She slowly lifted up her right arm. I turned away and never saw Isopel Berners again." That night as he was going home he said: "Isopel Berners is waiting for me, and the first word that I shall hear from her lips is that she has made up her mind. We shall go to America, and be so happy together." She sent him a letter of farewell, and he could not follow her, he would not try, lest if he overtook her she should despise him for running after her.