'As I was for not knowing that you wouldn't understand that I only meant you were to wait till the right one turned up. Why, if I had been at Auckland, would you have cried till I came home?' 'Oh, I'm sorry I was silly! But I'm glad you didn't mean it, dear Harry!' squeezing him convulsively. 'There! And now you'll sleep sound, and meet them as fresh as a fair wind to-morrow. Eh?' 'Only please tell papa I'm sorry I worried him.' 'And how about somebody else, Mary, whom you've kept on tenter-hooks ever so long? Are you sure he is not walking up and down under the limes on the brink of despair?' 'Oh, do you think--? But he would not be so foolish!' 'There now, go to sleep. I'll settle it all for you, and I shan't let any one say you are a goose but myself. Only sleep, and get those horrid red spots away from under your eyes, or perhaps he'll repent his bargain, said Harry, kissing each red spot. 'Promise you'll go to bed the instant I'm gone.' 'Well,' said Dr. May, looking out of his room, 'I augur that the spirit of the flood has something to say to the spirit of the fell.' 'I should think so! Genuine article--no mistake.' 'Then what was all this about?' 'All my fault. Some rhodomontade of mine about not letting her marry had cast anchor in her dear little ridiculous heart, and it is well I turned up before she had quite dissolved herself away.' 'Is that really all?' 'The sum total of the whole, as sure as--' said Harry, pausing for an asseveration, and ending with 'as sure as your name is Dick May;' whereat they both fell a-laughing, though they were hardly drops of laughter that Harry brushed from the weather-marked pucker in the comer of his eyes; and Dr. May gave a sigh of relief, and said, 'Well, that's right!' 'Where's the latch-key? I must run down and put Cheviot out of his misery.' 'It is eleven o'clock, he'll be gone to bed.' 'Then I would forbid the banns. Where does he hang out? Has he got into old Hoxton's?' 'No, it is being revivified. He is at Davis's lodgings. But I advise you not, a little suspense will do him good.' 'One would think you had never been in love,' said Harry, indignantly. 'At least, I can't sleep till I've shaken hands with the old fellow. Good night, father. I'll not be long.' He kept his word, and the same voice greeted him out of the dressing-room: 'How was the spirit of the fell? Sleep'st thou, brother?' 'Brother, nay,' answered Harry, 'he was only looking over Latin verses! He always was a cool hand.' 'The spirit of the Fell--Dr. Fell, with a vengeance,' said Dr. May. 'I say, Harry, is this going to be a mere business transaction on his part? Young folks have not a bit of romance in these days, and one does not know where to have them; but if I thought--'