“Didn’t I tell you I was?  A good, obedient girl, and anything but a flirt.”

“I don’t say that.”

“But I do.  Don’t interrupt.  It is to your good advice I owe my health; and to love anybody but you, when I owe you my love and my life, I must be a heartless, ungrateful, worthless—­Oh, Christopher, forgive me!  No, no; I mean, beg my pardon.”

“I’ll do both,” said Christopher, taking her in his arms.  “I beg your pardon, and I forgive you.”

Rosa leaned her head tenderly on his shoulder, and began to sigh.  “Oh, dear, dear!  I am a wicked, foolish girl, not fit to walk alone.”

On this admission, Christopher spoke out, and urged her to put an end to all these unhappy misunderstandings, and to his new torment, jealousy, by marrying him.

“And so I would this very minute, if papa would consent.  But,” said she, slyly, “you never can be so foolish to wish it.  What! a wise man like you marry a simpleton!”

“Did I ever call you that?” asked Christopher, reproachfully.

“No, dear; but you are the only one who has not; and perhaps I should lose even the one, if you were to marry me.  Oh, husbands are not so polite as lovers!  I have observed that, simpleton or not.”

Christopher assured her that he took quite a different view of her character; he believed her to be too profound for shallow people to read all in a moment:  he even intimated that he himself had experienced no little difficulty in understanding her at odd times.  “And so,” said he, “they turn round upon you, and instead of saying, ’We are too shallow to fathom you,’ they pretend you are a simpleton.”

This solution of the mystery had never occurred to Rosa, nor indeed was it likely to occur to any creature less ingenious than a lover:  it pleased her hugely; her fine eyes sparkled, and she nestled closer still to the strong arm that was to parry every ill, from mortal disease to galling epithets.

She listened with a willing ear to all his reasons, his hopes, his fears, and, when they reached her father’s door, it was settled that he should dine there that day, and urge his suit to her father after dinner.  She would implore the old gentleman to listen to it favorably.

The lovers parted, and Christopher went home like one who has awakened from a hideous dream to daylight and happiness.

He had not gone far before he met a dashing dogcart, driven by an exquisite.  He turned to look after it, and saw it drive up to Kent Villa.

In a moment he divined his rival, and a sickness of heart came over him.  But he recovered himself directly, and said, “If that is the fellow, she will not receive him now.”

She did receive him though:  at all events, the dogcart stood at the door, and its master remained inside.

Christopher stood, and counted the minutes:  five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and still the dogcart stood there.