Mr. Bevan, at the outset of his wooing, was exceedingly assiduous and demonstrative, but as all this only served to develop his young lady’s ingrained propensity to coquetry, he changed his tactics, and with a cleverness which brought its own reward, he feigned indifference, as though his loveflame was considerably dwindling down. This had the desired effect, and may afford a hint to ardent swains whose chosen ones are given to fluctuations and indecision. Latterly Hannah had shown a steady loyalty to her lover, as though at last she had found her fate. One evening, as she and the courtly Bevan were holding a stolen interview beneath a spreading beech-tree in the park, some evil spirit entered into Hannah, and led her to throw out vague hints and insinuations that he was not so certainly the “man in possession” as he seemed to think. She intimated that there was another “Richmond in the field,” and, true to Sir Walter Scott’s description of woman, who is, “In our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,” she succeeded in annoying and perhaps alarming her lover with the idea that his mittimus was looming in the distance. Aubrey Bevan brought out his final weapon for repelling the attack, and coolly informed her that he was about to leave for London, the elysium of valets, the paradise of love and beauty. This startling information was more than Hannah bargained for. There was a perceptible change in her voice, speedily noted by Mr. Bevan, as she said,-- “You are not really going, are you, Aubrey?” which only brought the unrelenting answer,-- “Yes, my prairie flower. I am really going. ‘My bark is on the sea, and the wind blows fair.’” Rather an awkward position, surely, if he was an intending voyager; but Mr. Bevan was nothing if not poetic. “Oh dear, Aubrey! How can you?” “Does my impending departure flutter the heart of my little gazelle?” said the poet, with a tremulous intonation which would have melted a colder heart than Hannah’s. “Don’t go, Aubrey; you mustn’t go. I cannot spare you.” “Fair syren of my soul! I thank thee for that word! ‘Had I a heart for falsehood framed.’” There were those who had the honour of Mr. Bevan’s acquaintance who would have said, in answer, “Yes, most decidedly!” “My charming angel! ‘Where duty calls I must away. Hark! hark! the drum.’” A little more of this gay troubadour line of business, and Hannah was fairly subdued.