“The landleddy’s just tottin’ up the ledgers o’ the hottle in her ain room,” answered Mr. Bishopriggs. “She’ll be here anon--the wearyful woman!--speerin’ who ye are and what ye are, and takin’ a’ the business o’ the hoose on her ain pair o’ shouthers.” He dropped the subject of the landlady, and put in a plea for himself. “I ha’ lookit after a’ the leddy’s little comforts, Sir,” he whispered. “Trust in me! trust in me!” Arnold’s attention was absorbed in the very serious difficulty of announcing his arrival to Anne. “How am I to get her out?” he said to himself, with a look of perplexity directed at the bedroom door. He had spoken loud enough for the waiter to hear him. Arnold’s look of perplexity was instantly reflected on the face of Mr. Bishopriggs. The head-waiter at Craig Fernie possessed an immense experience of the manners and customs of newly-married people on their honeymoon trip. He had been a second father (with excellent pecuniary results) to innumerable brides and bridegrooms. He knew young married couples in all their varieties:--The couples who try to behave as if they had been married for many years; the couples who attempt no concealment, and take advice from competent authorities about them. The couples who are bashfully talkative before third persons; the couples who are bashfully silent under similar circumstances. The couples who don’t know what to do, the couples who wish it was over; the couples who must never be intruded upon without careful preliminary knocking at the door; the couples who _can_ eat and drink in the intervals of “bliss,” and the other couples who _can’t._ But the bridegroom who stood helpless on one side of the door, and the bride who remained locked in on the other, were new varieties of the nuptial species, even in the vast experience of Mr. Bishopriggs himself. “Hoo are ye to get her oot?” he repeated. “I’ll show ye hoo!” He advanced as rapidly as his gouty feet would let him, and knocked at the bedroom door. “Eh, my leddy! here he is in flesh and bluid. Mercy preserve us! do ye lock the door of the nuptial chamber in your husband’s face?” At that unanswerable appeal the lock was heard turning in the door. Mr. Bishopriggs winked at Arnold with his one available eye, and laid his forefinger knowingly along his enormous nose. “I’m away before she falls into your arms! Rely on it I’ll no come in again without knocking first!” He left Arnold alone in the room. The bedroom door opened slowly by a few inches at a time. Anne’s voice was just audible speaking cautiously behind it. “Is that you, Geoffrey?” Arnold’s heart began to beat fast, in anticipation of the disclosure which was now close at hand. He knew neither what to say or do--he remained silent. Anne repeated the question in louder tones: “Is that you?” There was the certain prospect of alarming her, if some reply was not given. There was no help for it. Come what come might, Arnold answered, in a whisper: “Yes.”