opinion, for whatever was his motive in turning suddenly one day upon Ada, who was fluttering and saying foolish amiable things, it was certainly not purely that of love; but perhaps we are all sufficiently liable to act from mixed motives, to abstain from judging him too harshly. His engagement, although Winifred heard of it for the first time that day, had really lasted a week: some question of the time struck him as he drove to the door of the Bennetts' house, and went slowly up the steps. There had been a little confusion of blue at one side of the windows, of which he had caught sight, and guessed who was waiting for him. In the short space between the door and the staircase there rose up before him her welcome, her look, the very words she would say, as if it had all been going on for a year instead of the few days which had surely offered no time for weariness. And yet a certain weariness touched him with a sting of self-reproach, and made him infuse a little more warmth into his greeting than was usual. "You are very late, Anthony," she said, putting her hand on his arm, and shaking her long curl reprovingly. "Do you know that Aunt Henrietta fancied you were not coming at all?" "But you did not accuse me of anything so impossible?" "No, indeed. I don't think I should have spoken to you for a week if you had stayed away, and I suppose, though I am sure I don't know, that you would have minded that. But now that you are here, you are to tell me every single thing you have been doing." His face darkened slightly. This small affectionate tyranny was new to him, and he was not quite in the mood for it. "Suppose we turn the tables," he said, with a little restraint. "What have you been about to-day?" "I? O, I have not been beyond the garden. I sat there and read and thought--" "Thought?" "Ah, I am not going to tell you what I was thinking of; you men are conceited enough already. O Anthony, I hear Uncle Tom. Do go and look out of that window; do, please, go!" There seemed no particular reason for this separation, but she was so eager that Anthony obeyed. He rather dreaded Mr Bennett's ponderous jokes himself, and it was possible that Ada had not yet become used to them. "Ah, Miles, here you are, here you are! just in time for the salmon, after all. My wife took it into her head you'd be late, but I said, `My dear, put a salmon at one end of the line, and a man at the other, and the two must come together somehow.' Ha, ha! not bad, was it? And you'd something else to draw you besides, hadn't you? Ada,--where are you, Ada? Come, come, you'd have me believe you've never met before; perhaps you'd like to be introduced. It's never too late to mend, is it?"