Immediately after breakfast the next day, Leander went out and paid a visit to Miss Twilling's, bringing away with him a hooded cloak of the precise kind he remembered Matilda to have described as unlikely to render its owner conspicuous. With this garment he succeeded in disguising the statue to such a degree, that it was far less likely than before that the goddess's appearance in public would excite any particular curiosity--a result which somewhat relieved his anxiety as to her future proceedings. But all that day his thoughts were busy with Matilda. He must, he feared, have deeply offended her by his abrupt change on the previous night; and now he could not expect to meet her again for days, and would not know how to explain his conduct if he did meet her. If he could only dare to tell her everything; but from such a course he shrank. Matilda would not only be extremely indignant (though, in very truth, he had done nothing positively wrong as yet), but, with her strict notions and well-regulated principles, she would assuredly recoil from a lover who had brought himself into a predicament so hideous. He would tell her all when, or if, he succeeded in extricating himself. But he was to learn the nature of Matilda's sentiments sooner than he expected. It was growing dusk, and he was unpacking a parcel of goods in his front shop--for his saloon happened to be empty just then--when the outer door swung back, and a slight girlish figure entered, after a pause of indecision on the threshold. It was Matilda. Had she come to break it off--to reproach him? He was prepared for no less; she had never paid him a visit like this alone before; and some doubts of the propriety of the thing seemed to be troubling her now, for she did not speak. "Matilda," he faltered, "don't tell me you have come in a spirit of unpleasantness, for I can't bear it." "Don't you deserve that I should?" she said, but not angrily. "You know, you were very strange in behaving as you did last night. I couldn't tell what to make of it." "I know," he said confusedly; "it was something come over me, all of a sudden like. I can't understand what made me like that; but, oh, Tillie, my dearest love, my 'art was busting with adoration all the time! The circumstances was highly peculiar; but I don't know that I could explain them." "You needn't, Leander; I have found you out." She said this with a strange significance. "What!" he almost shrieked. "You don't mean it, Matilda! Tell me, quick! has the discovery changed your feelings towards me? Has it?" "Yes," she said softly. "I--I think it has; but you ought not to have done it, Leander." "I know," he groaned. "I was a fool, Tillie; a fool! But I may get out of it yet," he added. "I can get her to let me off. I must--I will!" Matilda opened her eyes. "But, Leander dear, listen; don't be so hasty. I never said I _wanted_ her to let you off, did I?"