The color deepened—the eyes were raised with an expression which Catharine had never seen before, and she guessed rather than heard, the scarcely audible name of “Mr. Stanley.” She gave a cry of delight, threw her arms around Ada’s neck, and gave vent to her joy in broken sentences: “Oh, I am so happy!—I knew it would be so!—my dear Ada, did I not predict it, and am I not indeed Cassandra? To think of every thing ending so charmingly when the beginning was so inauspicious. And I—oh, Ada, do forgive me my heedless impertinences; I have often thought of them with contrition. Why is not Charles here to have a hornpipe with me for joy?—But never mind—now I remember, he went to see Stanley, and perhaps he is hearing it all from him! _You_ in love, Ada! Ah! confess that the word is a sweet one! And now come and tell me all about it! But stay,” said she, relapsing into her own saucy vein, “what have you to say for your high-flown opinions of last winter, on celibacy?” “They remain unchanged,” replied Ada. “But your feelings. Defend them if you dare from inconsistency.” “I will not attempt it,” said Ada, smiling. “Like Rousseau, ‘Je serais bien fâché d’être du nombre de ceux qui savent répondre à tout.’” “Ah! there is nothing like wit to silence just accusation,” began Catharine, but just then she felt the little hand which she still held, tremble, and her ear soon after, caught the sound of carriage-wheels. “Ah, that must be he!” cried she. “Commend me to the acuteness of lovers’ ears! Why, Ada, your heart has almost the gift of prescience!” and away bounded Catharine to greet her favorite. “And so, Stanley, the sun has at last risen on Memnon’s statue,” were almost the first words she uttered. “Yes,” answered Charles Ingleby, emerging from the carriage, “and very much elated he seems to be with his new achievement.” “Why, Charles, are you there too?” said his wife. “See,” exclaimed she to Stanley, “how marriage blunts the sensibilities. There was Ada who had an electric presentiment of _your_ coming; while I, though I have been a wife but seven months, stood as dumb as an effigy, while Charles was near.” “Encouraging for you, Stanley,” observed Ingleby, and he passed into the parlor where Ada was sitting. Stanley looked wistfully after him, and having caught the first sound of Ada’s sweet voice, he took Catharine’s arm within his, and they walked to the opposite end of the piazza, where they talked together for some time, in a low voice. Catharine was the first to break out into an audible tone. “Arrived to-day,” exclaimed she, with evident delight, “when will she be here?” “In an hour, I think,” replied he, “and I must now go and prepare Ada to receive her. I really begin to tremble as the time draws nigh; and I owe it all to you, for scaring me with the spectre of my own name.”