And so saying, I kissed away the saddened cloud that for a moment overcast her face.

“Papa, he bid me be sure to have an answer for him when we meet again,” resumed the child.  “What shall I say to him when he asks me?”

“Say that we agree to his proposal, my dear—­or stay,” I said, addressing my wife, “may it not be prudent to reduce what the child says to writing, and accept the offer so?  This will prevent misunderstanding, as she may possibly have made some mistake.”

My wife agreed, and I wrote a brief note, stating that I was willing to receive an inmate upon the terms recounted by little Fanny, and which I distinctly specified, so that no mistake could possibly arise owing to the vagueness of what lawyers term a parole agreement.  This important memorandum I placed in the hands of my little girl, who was to deliver it whenever the old gentleman in the yellow waistcoat should chance to meet her.  And all these arrangements completed, I awaited the issue of the affair with as much patience as I could affect.  Meanwhile, my wife and I talked it over incessantly; and she, good little soul, almost wore herself to death in settling and unsettling the furniture and decorations of our expected inmate’s apartments.  Days passed away—­days of hopes deferred, tedious and anxious.  We were beginning to despond again, when one morning our little girl ran into the breakfast-parlour, more excited even than she had been before, and fresh from a new interview with the gentleman in the yellow waistcoat.  She had encountered him suddenly, pretty nearly where she had met him before, and the result was, that he had read the little note I have mentioned, and desired the child to inform me that his friend, Mr. Smith, would take possession of the apartments I proposed setting, on the terms agreed between us, that very evening.

“This evening!” exclaimed my wife and I simultaneously—­I full of the idea of making a first instalment on the day following; she, of the hundred-and-one preparations which still remained to be completed.

“And so Smith is his name!  Well, that does not tell us much,” said I; “but where did you meet your friend on this occasion, and how long is it since?”

“Near the corner of the wall-flower lane (so we indicated one which abounded in these fragrant plants); he was leaning with his back against the old tree you cut my name on, and his crutch was under his arm.”

“But how long ago?” I urged.

“Only this moment; I ran home as fast as I could,” she replied.

“Why, you little blockhead, you should have told me that at first,” I cried, snatching up my hat, and darting away in pursuit of the yellow waistcoat, whose acquaintance I not unnaturally coveted, inasmuch as a man who, for the first time, admits a stranger into his house, on the footing of permanent residence, desires generally to know a little more about him than that his name is Smith.