“Happy England!” I said; but Aunt Di went on with her lamentations. “He certainly admired Iris, and Iris has certainly encouraged him for months. It is all very well to talk about romance, but Iris is an extravagant little thing, and would be wretched as a poor man’s wife; even _you_ can not deny that, Niece Martha” (I could not, and did not). “Mokes would have suited her very well in the long-run, and now, by her own foolishness, she has lost him forever. I must confess I felt sick at heart, to say nothing of being chilled to the bone sitting on that damp stone.” “And where were you then?” “Well, to tell the truth, I thought I would hint a little something to Mokes--delicately, of course--and, as we were walking to and fro on the sea-wall, I proposed strolling into the demi-lune.” “That demi-lune!” I exclaimed. “Yes; it is quite retired, you know, and I had never seen it.” That demi-lune! But that was not all I had to lay up against that venerable and mysterious outlying fortification. The next afternoon I myself strolled up there, and passing by the two dragons, their two houses, and the supply of mutton hanging up below, I climbed the old stairway, and turning the angle, sat down on the grass to rest a while. I had a new novel, and leaning back comfortably against the parapet, I began to read; but the warm sunshine lulled me before I knew it into one of those soothing after-dinner naps so dear to forty years. The sound of voices woke me. “No; Miss Miles is superficial, not to say flippant.” (“Decidedly, listeners never hear any good of themselves,” I thought; “but I can’t show myself now, of course, without making matters worse. If they should come up farther, I can be sound asleep.” For the voice came from the little hidden stairway, and belonged unmistakably to our solemn Professor.) “And Miss St. John is decidedly overbearing,” continued our learned friend. “It is only too true,” sighed the voice of the governess. “But those are the faults of the feminine mind when undisciplined by regular mental training.” “I have noticed, however, one mind” (and here the Professor’s voice took a tender tone)--“one mind, Miss Sharp, whose workings seem to follow my own, one mind in which I can see an interest, veiled, of course, as is seemly, but still plainly discernible to the penetrative eye--an interest in my Great Work, now in process of compilation. My emotional nature has, I fear, been somewhat neglected in the cultivation of my intellectual faculties, but there is still time for its development, I think.” Miss Sharp, in a gentle, assenting murmur, thought there was. (“So it has come about at last,” I said to myself; “and very well suited they are, too.”) “This mind might be of assistance to me in many ways,” continued the Professor. “I could mould it to my own. And I can not let the present happy occasion pass without disclosing to you, my dear Miss Sharp, the state of my feelings. Although youthful, Miss Carew--”