“Nothing is the matter, unless you can call good news something the matter.  We have just left your grandmother’s on business, having been up to ’Squire Van Tassel’s on her affairs; rather than let us go on foot, she lent us her chaise, on condition that we should stop on our return and bring you home with us.  The chaise is the evidence that we act under orders.”

In most countries, such a proposition would have excited distrust; in America, and in that day, more especially among girls of the class of Kitty Huguenin, it produced none.  Then, I flatter myself, I was not a very frightful object to a girl of that age, and that my countenance was not of such a cast as absolutely to alarm her.  Kitty, accordingly, wished her companions hasty adieus, and in a minute she was placed between Marble and myself, the old vehicle being sufficiently spacious to accommodate three.  I made my bows and away we trotted, or ambled would be a better word.  For a brief space there was silence in the chaise, though I could detect Marble stealing side-long glances at his pretty little niece.  His eyes were moist, and he hemmed violently once, and actually blew his nose, taking occasion, at the same time, to pass his handkerchief over his forehead, no less than three times in as many minutes.  The furtive manner in which he indulged in these feelings, provoked me to say—­

“You appear to have a bad cold this evening, Mr. Wetmore,” for I thought the opportunity might also be improved, in the way of breaking ground with our secret.

“Ay, you know how it is in these matters, Miles—­somehow, I scarce know why myself, but somehow I feel bloody womanish this evening.”

I felt little Kitty pressing closer to my side, as if she had certain misgivings touching her other neighbour.

“I suppose you are surprised, Miss Kitty,” I resumed, “at finding two strangers in your grandmother’s chaise?”

“I did not expect it—­but—­you said you had been to Mr. Van Tassel’s, and that there was good news for me—­does ’Squire Van Tassel allow that grandfather paid him the money?”

“Not that exactly, but you have friends who will see that no wrong shall be done you.  I suppose you have been afraid your grandmother and yourself might be turned away from the old place?”

“’Squire Van Tassel’s daughters have boasted as much,”—­answered Kitty, in a very subdued tone—­a voice, indeed, that grew lower and more tremulous as she proceeded—­“but I don’t much mind them, for they think their father is to own the whole country one of these days.”  This was uttered with spirit.  “But the old house was built by grandmother’s grandfather, they say, and grandmother was born in it, and mother was born in it, and so was I. It is hard to leave a place like that, sir, and for a debt, too, that grandmother says she is sure has once been paid.”

“Ay, bloody hard!” growled Marble.

Kitty again pressed nearer to me, or, to speak more properly, farther from the mate, whose countenance was particularity grim just at that moment.