When I do meet that girl--perhaps she is the girl the old gipsy foretold for me to-day--I shall love her, and slave for her, and fight for her, so long as we both live, just because she is so utterly dependent on me. That is what brings out the best in a man. Unfortunately, I have not yet met her. When I do you may take it from me that I shall cease to be a Freak. Amen! Here endeth the First Lesson. There will be no collection." His discourse thus characteristically concluded, my friend sat silent and pensive. This was quite a new Dicky to me. "You appear to have studied the question deeply and scientifically," I said, frankly impressed. "My lad," replied Dicky with feeling, "if you possessed a disposition as flighty as mine--" "Quixotic," I amended. "All right--as quixotic as mine, and were also blessed with a dear old mother who spent her life confronting you with attractive young women with a view to matrimony, you would begin to study the question deeply and scientifically too. I am only a Freak, and all that, but I don’t want to make a mess of a girl’s life if I can help it; and that, old friend, owing to my susceptible nature and gentle maternal pressure from the rear, is exactly what I am in great danger of doing. I have had to mark time pretty resolutely of late, I can tell you. And that brings us to the matter in hand. Hilda and I seem to have reached the end of our tether. Something has got to be done." "It is just possible," I said, "that Miss Beverley has done it already." "What?" "It--the only thing that ought to be done." "What do you mean?" "When the others went upstairs to bed Miss Hilda retired into an inner drawing-room and sat down at a writing-table. There is no post out of here until lunch-time to-morrow. Therefore she was probably writing to some one in the house." Dicky nodded comprehendingly. "Proceed, Sherlock," he said. "To whom was she writing?" I enquired. Dicky thought. "To me," he announced at length. "Economical hobby. No stamps required. Well?" "Supposing," I continued, "that Miss Beverley has been writing to you to-night--what then?" "I shall receive a letter from her in the morning," concluded Dicky. "Eh? Wrong answer? Sorry! What will happen, then?" "You will get your letter to-night." Dicky looked doubtful. "Where? When?" he asked. "That’s it. Where and when?" Dicky pondered. "On my pin-cushion, when I go upstairs to bed," he said at last--"although it strikes me as a most unmaidenly action for Hilda." "So unmaidenly," I replied, "that you will probably find the letter on the hall table by your candle. Come and see." My faith in Miss Beverley’s sense of propriety was fully justified, for we found the letter in the hall beside the candlesticks exactly as I had foretold. Probably it had not lain there more than five minutes. "What do you think of that?" I enquired.