Meanwhile, he found it impossible to keep away from Nairn Cottage. Two or three evenings a week found him there, and he was always made welcome. The ostensible object of his visits was to form one in the little musical gatherings which, every Monday and Thursday evenings, wooed "the heavenly maid" in Miss Brancker's sitting-room. CHAPTER IV. A LAGGARD IN LOVE. As Hermia sat playing this evening all the attention she was obliged to give to the music could not keep her uncle's words from ringing in her ears: "He is as changeable as the moon, as I have told him many a time." What if Frank had changed towards her, and were never to come and see her more! She knew, or thought she knew, the reason why Frank Derison had kept away from Nairn Cottage for upwards of a week. On the occasion of his last visit, when she was at the piano, and he was turning over her music, there being no one but themselves in the room, he had suddenly stooped and imprinted a kiss on her cheek. She had started up in a flame of indignation, and the result had been a short but sharp passage of arms between the two. There was a sort of half-engagement between them (of which more hereafter), sufficiently binding, however, in Frank's opinion, to allow of his stealing a kiss "without a fellow being called over the coals for it as if he had committed some awful crime." But Hermia took a totally opposite view, and Frank was made to understand that, on no account, must he attempt to take such a liberty again. Thereupon, the young fellow had flung out of the cottage in a huff, and had not been near since; while Hermia, as a matter of course, had locked herself in her bedroom, and had a good cry all to herself. The concert this evening went on for upwards of an hour. Then came an interruption. Dr. Hazeldine was wanted in haste by one of his patients. "My father would fain have made a doctor of me," remarked Mr. Kittaway, parenthetically, "but I said, 'Give me a business that will leave me my own master at night, and that will ensure me from being called out of bed to go tramping through the rain or snow at all sorts of hours.'" "It's nothing when you are used to it," said Clement, with a laugh. "It seems to me very inconsiderate of people to be taken ill in the middle of the night," remarked the old gentleman, as he peered into his snuff-box; "matters ought to be arranged differently somehow." Mr. Kittaway stayed about half an hour after Clement's departure. After partaking of a small mug of warm elder wine and a soft biscuit, he, too, took his leave. "I think I will walk as far as Strong's, and see whether he is likely to turn up on Sunday," said John, a few minutes later. John was organist at the parish church, and Strong was the man who blew the bellows for him. "It is rather late for you to go out," observed Miss Brancker. "The night is fine, and the walk will do me good. Besides, if Strong is no better, I must look out for a substitute to-morrow."