“No, my dear, I don’t; but no matter: I will presently, I daresay.” “Oh, I wish for once you wouldn’t be so flippant. Mr. Arbuton has offered himself to Kitty.” Colonel Ellison gave a quick, sharp whistle of amazement, but trusted himself to nothing more articulate. “Yes,” said his wife, responding to the whistle, “and it makes me perfectly wretched.” “Why, I thought you liked him.” “I didn’t _like_ him; but I thought it would be an excellent thing for Kitty.” “And won’t it?” “She doesn’t know.” “Doesn’t know?” “No.” The colonel was silent, while Mrs. Ellison stated the case in full, and its pending uncertainty. Then he exclaimed vehemently as if his amazement had been growing upon him. “This is the most astonishing thing in the world! Who would ever have dreamt of that young iceberg being in love?” “Haven’t I _told_ you all along he was?” “Oh yes, certainly! but that might be taken either way, you know. You would discover the tender passion in the eye of a potato.” “Colonel Ellison,” said Fanny, with sternness, “why do you suppose he’s been hanging about us for the last four weeks? Why should he have stayed in Quebec? Do you think he pitied _me_, or found _you_ so very agreeable?” “Well, I thought he found us just tolerable, and was interested in the place.” Mrs. Ellison made no direct reply to this pitiable speech, but looked a scorn which, happily for the colonel, the darkness hid. Presently she said that bats did not express the blindness of men, for any bat could have seen what was going on. “Why,” remarked the colonel, “I did have a momentary suspicion that day of the Montgomery business; they both looked very confused when I saw them at the end of that street, and neither of them had anything to say; but that was accounted for by what you told me afterwards about his adventure. At the time I didn’t pay much attention to the matter. The idea of his being in love seemed too ridiculous.” “Was it ridiculous for you to be in love with me?” “No; and yet I can’t praise my condition for its wisdom, Fanny.” “Yes! that’s _like_ men. As soon as one of them is safely married, he thinks all the love-making in the world has been done for ever, and he can’t conceive of two young people taking a fancy to each other.” “That’s something so, Fanny. But granting—for the sake of argument merely—that Boston has been asking Kitty to marry him, and she doesn’t know whether she wants him, what are we to do about it? _I_ don’t like him well enough to plead his cause; do you? When does Kitty think she’ll be able to make up her mind?” “She’s to let him know before we leave.” The colonel laughed. “And so he’s to hang about here on uncertainties for two whole days! That _is_ rather rough on him. Fanny, what made you so eager for this business?” “Eager? I _wasn’t_ eager.” “Well, then,—reluctantly acquiescent?” “Why, she’s so literary and that.” “And what?”