"Indeed?" with an odd smile not too kindly. "I wish--no I don't--that we could say the same. We are engaged, I think"--she paused, her attention divided between myself and Boccherini's minuet, the low strains of which she was sending through the room--"for every afternoon--this week--except Saturday. By the way, Mr. Herapath--do you remember what was the name--Bab told me you called her?" "Bonnie Bab," I answered absently. My thoughts had gone forward to Saturday. We are always dropping to-day's substance for the shadow of tomorrow; like the dog--a dog was it not?--in the fable. "Oh, yes, Bonnie Bab," she murmured softly. "Poor Bab!" and suddenly she cut short Boccherini's music and our chat by striking a terrific discord and laughing at my start of discomfiture. Every one took it as a signal to leave. They all seemed to be going to meet her next day, or the day after that. They engaged her for dances, and made up a party for the play, and tossed to and fro a score of laughing catch-words, that were beyond my comprehension. They all did this, except myself. And yet I went away with something before me--the call upon Saturday afternoon. Quite unreasonably I fancied that I should see her alone. And so when the day came and I stood outside the opening door of the drawing-room, and heard voices and laughter behind it, I was hurt and aggrieved beyond measure. There was a party, and a merry one, assembled; who were playing at some game as it seemed to me, for I caught sight of Clare whipping off an impromptu bandage from her eyes, and striving by her stiffest air to give the lie to a pair of flushed cheeks. The close-shaven man was there, and two men of his kind, and a German governess, and a very old lady in a wheel-chair, who was called "grandmamma," and Miss Guest herself looking, in the prettiest dress of silvery plush, as bright and fair and graceful as I had been picturing her each hour since we parted. She dropped me a stately courtesy. "Will you be blindfold, or will you play the part of Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs, Mr. Herapath, while I say 'Fudge!' or will you burn nuts and play games with this gentleman--he is neighbour Flamborough? You will join us, won't you? Clare does not so misbehave every day, only it is a wet afternoon and so cold and wretched, and we did not think there would be any more callers--and tea will be up in five minutes." She did not think there would be any more callers! Something in her smile belied the words and taught me that she had thought--she had known--that there would be one more caller--one who would burn nuts and play games with her, though Rome itself were afire, and Tooley Street and the Mile End Road to boot.