"Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!" cried he to Adele.

     She obeyed him with what speed she might.

     "After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter much," said he, "when I mean shortly to claim you--your thoughts, conversation, and company--for life."

     Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away into a corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information.

     "Let her come to me," I entreated: "she will, perhaps, trouble you, sir: there is plenty of room on this side."

     He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. "I'll send her to school yet," he said, but now he was smiling.