“Well, yes, I am; although you don’t know it.  There isn’t man round Turriffs who has the least idea in the world where you are, for your friends left you asleep when they came out with the old gentleman; when I twigged how you got off I never told a word.  Your father had been seen” (here he winked) “near Dalhousie, wandering round!  But they won’t find you unless I tell them, and I won’t.”

“Won’t find me unless you tell them,” repeated Eliza slowly, the utmost astonishment in her tone.  “Who?”

So vague and great was the wonder in her voice that he brought his eyes to interrogate hers in sudden surprise.  He saw only simple and strong interest on the face of a simple and strong country girl.  He had expected a different response and a different expression.

He put his tongue in the side of his cheek with the air of an uncontrolled boy who has played a trump-card in vain.  “Say,” said he, “didn’t you, though?”

“Didn’t I?” said Eliza, and after a minute she said, “What?”

The young man looked at her and smiled.  His smile suggested a cunning recognition that she was deceiving him by pretended dulness.

At this Eliza looked excessively offended, and, with her head aloft, began to push on the little sleigh with the baby in it.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said with sudden humility, but with a certain lingering in his voice as if he could not relinquish his former idea as suddenly as he wished to appear to do.  “I see I’ve made a mistake.”

Eliza hesitated in her onward movement.  “But what was it you were going to tell about me?” She spoke as if she had merely then remembered how the conversation began.

His recantation was now complete.  “Nothing; oh, nothing.  T’was just my fun, miss.”

She surveyed him with earnest disapprobation.

“You’re not a very sensible young man, I’m afraid.”

She said this severely, and then, with great dignity, she went home.

The young man lingered for a minute or two by the snow piles in front of the hotel where they had been standing.  Then he went into the hotel with the uncertain step that betokens an undecided mind.  When he got to the window he looked out at her retreating figure—­a white street with this grey-clad healthy-looking girl walking down it, and the little red box-sleigh with the baby in it which she pushed before her.  He was quite alone, and he gave vent to an emphatic half-whisper to himself.

“If she did it, she’s a magnificent deep one—­a magnificent deep one.”  There was profound admiration in his voice.

That evening it was Mrs. Rexford who happened to wipe the tea-things while Eliza washed them.

“That young Mr. Harkness, the dentist—­” began Eliza.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Rexford, alert.

“Twice when I’ve been to the shop he’s tried to make himself pleasant to me and the children.  I don’t suppose he means any harm, but he’s not a sensible young man, I think.”