This time Priscilla came coyly to my arms, and I then knew all was well between us, especially when she turned me round with, "Dear old Harry! come to the light, you great brown giant, and look me in the face. Ah!" said she, as Alec obligingly held up the lamp that she might get a full view of me, "I can read truth in those bonny brown eyes, but you are a cruel fellow, or why did you not answer my letters? You bad boy!" "Sit down, Priscilla," and I quietly took her hands in mine, and drew her down beside me on the couch. "Now, Miss Fortune Teller! what letters do you refer to?" "Two that I sent you, one in June and the other only five weeks since, at the beginning of August." "Believe me, Priscilla, I have never received them, and did not know of your writing to me till my father informed me of it, but an hour since. Where did you write them?" "Here, Harry, in this very room." "And who posted them, did you do so yourself?" "No, your father posted the first, and Ellen the other." "No," interposed my father, "I recollect young Johnson called in directly you left, and seeing the letter in my hand, said he was going up to the village, and would post it for me, so I gave it to him." Just then Ellen entered with glasses and decanters, and it suddenly struck me to interrogate her on the subject. "Ellen, do you remember posting a letter to me, about a month ago, that Miss Grant gave you?" "Yes, sir, very well; at least I went half way to the post, when Mr. Walter Johnson overtook me on his bay horse, and stopped me to ask how Miss Grant was, and seeing the letter in my hand, he offered to drop it in the box for me as he rode by the post office. So as it was such a wet day I let him take it. Did I do wrong?" "Well, I don't quite know, but never mind, it saved you a drag in the wet, anyhow." The maid left the room, and then I gave it as my opinion that Walter Johnson _had never posted the letters_, and that to-morrow I would interview him on the subject. Alec was like a fish out of water at all this "high-bobaree," as he called it; but we now quieted down and spent a very happy evening together, with one or two neighbours, who having heard of my return, called in to pay their compliments. That night I tossed and turned about feverishly, as my home-coming experience had been so strange, that I could do nothing but think and dream of it. Walter Johnson was ever before me, and the more I thought of him and his underhand behaviour, the more I seemed to hate him, till at last I felt in quite a frenzy against him. I vowed to myself that in the morning I would see him, and if I could force him to confess his dastardly behaviour in not posting the letters to me, and in making love covertly to my affianced bride, I would thrash him soundly. My only fear was that I should do him some permanent bodily injury if he sneered at me, or in any way tried to ignore my right to put certain questions to him.