“I don’t often read novels,” said I, “but when I do, I must say I like a good gory story--something dripping or dank--with a yellow-haired heroine who loves to sit on her lover’s grave and braid her tresses by the light of the moon, and an Italian rival who stabs everybody in the forehead. If my hair doesn’t rise twice at least in every ten pages, I consider the author a muff. Domestic stories I hate. There is no need to subscribe to a library to hear people ask each other if they prefer brown bread to white, and muffins to crumpets, and to watch a curate take a flute in pieces out of his pocket and blow ‘Ye banks and braes’ to the pensive, flat-chested lady who works him slippers, and puts four lumps of sugar into his tea. Give me, I say, wounds and starting eye-balls, matted hair and clandestine meetings, streams of blood and gurgling yells. I don’t object to noblemen, but I think that money-lenders make the best villains. I also require that the heroine be supple and lightsome, and lissom and loose, with a tread like a panther, and a spring like--like----” “A flea,” suggested my aunt. “What a time you men always are over your wine,” said Conny. “What _do_ you talk about?” “I have received an invitation.” “What! to Thistlewood?” asked my aunt. “Yes, where I shall no doubt be shot.” “Through the heart,” warbled Conny, with a sly laugh. “Teazer, I am told, pulls a deadly trigger,” said I, looking at Conny. “When do you go?” inquired my aunt. “On Monday.” “They seem in a great hurry to have you,” with a toss of the head. “The invitation was hearty and irresistible. Yet I am so perfectly happy at Grove End, that I have no wish to leave it even for a day.” “You must make haste to come back,” said my aunt. “If Teazer will let you,” laughed Conny. I whispered, “Would you care if Teazer didn’t let me?” She hung her head and smiled. Her mamma was looking at us; having, I believe, overheard my question. “Do you mean yes or no, Conny?” She honoured me with a look; a full, deep, inscrutable look. The blue of her eyes was as fathomless as the blue of the heavens--and as expressionless. However, my heart found the meaning it wanted in them; and if my aunt hadn’t been watching, I should have grown demonstrative. My uncles were a long time absent. “What _can_ they be doing?” my aunt kept on exclaiming. “Talking over business matters, no doubt,” I replied. Conny went to the piano and began to play; and when she was in the middle of one of those fantasias, which you can only submit to listen to when they are played by the girl you love, the two old gentlemen entered. My aunt challenged them pretty briskly, and sarcastically expressed her surprise to see them. “Really,” said she, “I quite expected every moment to hear you ring for breakfast.” “Tut, tut!” cried my uncle Dick, who was in boisterous good spirits. “We have been settling the affairs of nations, and arranging the succession of dynasties.”