“Dear me!” exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superior being to assist at the childish amusement of his contemporaries, “Would any body ever suppose that was our Billy?”

“I should, my dear sister,” said I, with proud satisfaction; “but you remember I always was just to Billy.”

Left free, I went myself to hunt up Daniel.  I found his door locked and a light shining through the keyhole, as Billy had stated.  I made no attempt to enter by knocking; but going to my room and opening the window next his, leaned out as far as I could, shoved up his sash with my cane, and pushed aside his curtain.  Such an unusual method of communication could not fail to bring him to the window with a rush.  When he saw me he trembled like a guilty thing, his countenance fell, and, no longer able to feign absence, he unlocked his door and let me enter by the normal mode.

“Why, Daniel Lovegrove, my nephew, what does this mean?  Are you sick?”

“Uncle Edward, I am not sick,—­and this means that I am a fool.  Even a little boy like Billy puts me to shame.  I feel humbled to the very dust.  I wish I’d been a missionary and got massacred by savages.  Oh that I’d been permitted to wear damp stockings in childhood, or that my mother hadn’t carried me through the measles!  If it weren’t wrong to take my life into my own hands, I’d open that window, and—­and—­sit in a draught this very evening!  Oh, yes!  I’m just that bitter!  Oh, oh, oh!”

And Daniel paced the floor with strides of frenzy.

“Well, my dear fellow, let’s look at the matter calmly a minute.  What brought on this sudden attack?  You seemed doing well enough the first ten minutes after we came down.  I was only out of your sight long enough to speak to the Rumbullion party who had just come in, and when I turned around you were gone.  Now you are in this fearful condition.  What is there in the Rumbullions to start you off on such a bender of bashfulness as this which I here behold?”

“Rumbullion indeed!” said Daniel.  “A hundred Rumbullions could not make me feel as I do.  But she can shake me into a whirlwind with her little finger; and she came with the Rumbullions!”

“What!  D’you—­Miss Pilgrim?”

“Miss Pilgrim!”

I labored with Daniel for ten minutes, using every encouragement and argument I could think of, and finally threatened him that I would bring up the whole Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling them that he had invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, unless he instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied me down stairs.  This dreadful menace had the desired effect.  He knew that I would not scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him surrender, it also provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes and cheeks as fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a favorable impression.  The stimulus of wrath was good for him, and there was little tremor in his knees when he descended the stairs.  Well-a-day!  So Daniel and Billy were rivals!