Bertie looked relieved.  He began to understand the mistake, which he considered a fortunate one.

“And did you promise to give me up?”

She turned her large, innocent eyes upon him.  “How could I, when I care more for you than anything in the world?”

“My poor little Bluebell!” said Du Meresq, crushing her in his arms.  But the sleigh stopped; the man was getting down.

“My time is up, sir.”

“Well, drive to where you took us up,” said Bertie.  “Bluebell, tell me quick, where shall I see you again?”

“I can’t risk driving,” said she, hurriedly.  “When will you be able to walk?”

“Can’t I see you alone at home sometimes?  When are your people likely to be out?”

“They don’t go out for days together, except on Sunday, to church; and Aunt Jane would suspect something directly if I didn’t go with them.”

“Let her, meddling old idiot!  I shall come then, Bluebell.”

“No, no, Bertie; pray don’t!  Could you walk in a week?”

“What an eternity!  Well, meet me in the Avenue in the Queen’s Park, at three o’clock on Wednesday.  Here’s this brute getting down again.  Only just time to kiss those dear blue eyes. Addio Leonore.  How the deuce am I to get home, I wonder?”

“Bertie, you’ll never be able to walk.”

“Never mind me.  Run back, my dearest, and throw dust in the eyes of that misguided old female, who presumes to open them on what doesn’t concern her.”

CHAPTER XIII.

NORTHERN LIGHTS.

                       Do you remember
  Those evenings in the bleak December,
  Curtained warm from the snowy weather,
  When you and I played chess together,
  Checkmated by each other’s eyes? 
                        —­The Wanderer.

Bluebell sped home, and, to evade remarks, hung up her hat in the passage, as the least embarrassing way of reporting herself, then remained, perdu, in her own room, transfigured into fairy-land by her happy thoughts.  Bertie was acquitted of intentional neglect.  It was only the malignity of Fate that had divided them; and there was the positive anticipation of meeting again in six days.  To be sure, it involved entering on a course of deceit.  Aunt Jane would, probably, be shocked, as she was at everything; mamma would not think much of it; and as for Mrs. Rolleston, she need not consider her wishes, after telling Bertie such a bare-faced fib about Jack Vavasour, evidently in the hope of making mischief between them.  She was very much astonished at such unscrupulous conduct in her friend, but what other conclusion could she come to?

To be sure, common-sense whispered that looks and language such as Du Meresq had permitted himself, ought to be followed by an offer of marriage; but with common-sense Bluebell had little to do at this period, and first love cares not to concern itself with the prosaic.  The mystery and romance of interviews with her love, “undreamt-of by the world in its primness,” appeared far more enchanting than any authorized attachment provided with a regulation gooseberry picker.