“Well, I am sure,” said Mrs. Leigh, “some girls here are that pert and forward, I can’t bear it myself; and yet the gentlemen all encourage it, and think it real smart.  Lilla Tremaine, you know, Aunt Jane.”

“Ah!” said Bertie, shaking his head, “a very unsteady young person.”

While Du Meresq was making conversation, Bluebell sat incapable of contributing to it.  She would not have believed that his presence should afford her so little pleasure; but he seemed incongruous here, and was apparently amusing himself with the simplicity of her relatives.  A clatter of tea-things filled her mind with dismay.  The ideas of the “help” on the subject of cleanliness were in a very rudimentary stage, and that the cloth would be in anything but its first freshness, was a moral certainty.  Impossible, however, to avert the catastrophe, and the general servant, actuated by a determination to get another look at Miss Bluebell’s “young man,” undauntedly bore in the tray.

“Dear me, is it not rather early?” said Mrs. Leigh.  “Oh, Captain Du Meresq,”—­seeing him rise,—­“you must stay and have a cup with us.”

“Another day, if you will allow me,” said Bertie, trying to disguise his extreme lameness.  “I hope, having found my way here, I may be permitted to call again in this sociable manner, and have a little agreeable conversation, so preferable to gaiety, which I abhor.”

“If you will take us as you find us,” said the little lady, graciously, “we shall look upon it as a great favour, I am sure.  Dear me, Captain Du Meresq, have you hit your foot?  You seem quite lame.”

“I am, rather.  I had an accident.  Is there not some shorter way back than the road I came?”

“Oh, yes, by Barker’s Row.  You know the Link House?”

“No—­a,” said Bertie, looking expressively at Bluebell, as a hint that she might offer to point out the road.

“Oh, surely you must; keep straight on King Street, and then you come to—­”

“Wolfe Street?” suggested Du Meresq.

“Gracious, no! that would be quite out of your way!  Go to—­I’ll tell you what, Bluebell shall show you where you turn off—­it isn’t ten minutes from here.”

Bertie murmured a profusion of thanks, and, distrustful of Miss Opie, protested against being so troublesome.  But Bluebell, scarce able to believe in such luck, sprang up with a sudden illumination of countenance, and the next minute the lovers were alone under the light of the moon.

“Bluebell,” said Du Meresq, “I have got a sleigh here.  I thought I might get you out of it if I pretended I was walking, and didn’t know the way; but the fact is, my child, I can hardly limp a hundred yards.  Come a little drive with me.”

“Oh!  I dare not.  It is so late, and they expect me back again directly.”

“Then you are going to run away the first moment we have been alone for so long!”

“Whose fault is that,” said she, reproachfully.