I made no answer; and, as if thinking he had said what he ought not, he immediately changed the conversation, and began to question me of my studies, etc., asking me among other things, if I went to _dancing school_. Instantly I remembered Mrs. Ross’s slippers with the little _wads_ of cotton, and I laughed aloud. It seems his thoughts took the same direction, for he, too, laughed so loudly that when we returned to Dell’s room, she rather pettishly inquired what we found to amuse us so much, saying “she hadn’t seen the doctor look so pleased since—since, well, since grandma’s death,” she finally added, at the same time glancing at him to witness the effect of her words. He turned very white about the mouth, and I am quite certain I heard the word “_thunder!_” At all events, his eyes flashed angrily upon the provoking woman, who again inquired at what we were laughing. When I told her, she too laughed, saying, “Oh, yes, I remember it well, and have sometimes thought that I owe my present position to that awkward misstep of yours.” “I am very glad I fell, then,” said I, rather impatiently, while I threw on my hood and shawl, preparatory to going home. “Hadn’t you better call an omnibus for her?” asked Dell of her husband, who was putting on his overshoes. “I am going round with her myself,” he answered. “I have a patient on the way,” and he hurried from the room ere she could say anything further. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and as I took his arm I recalled the time when once before we had walked thus together. I think he remembered it too, for he asked me “if I ever visited Pine District?” “Not often,” I replied; and he continued to say, that “notwithstanding that it was little more than a year and a half since he first saw me there, it seemed to him an age,” adding; “and it is not strange neither, for I have passed through many trials since then.” To this I made no reply, and ere long he proceeded to speak further of himself, and of his disappointment, first with regard to his business, and next with regard to his domestic relations, which he gave me to understand were not particularly happy. Very delicately and carefully he handled the latter subject, speaking not one half so harshly of Dell as she had spoken of him. Still I felt that he had no right thus to speak to me, and so I told him. “I know it, Rose,” he returned. “I know it all; but for this once you _must_ hear me, and I will never trouble you again. I committed a great error in marrying one, while my heart belonged to another—stay,” he continued, as I was about to interrupt him. “You must hear me out. It is not of my love for _that other_ that I would speak; but, Rose, I would know how far I have wronged you. _Did_ you love me, and had I asked you to share my home, when at a suitable age, would you have done so?”