sions); there was John, making as light of it as he could, but explaining at the same time, with most unnecessary elaboration; and here was she, coming towards them, with both of them looking at her, conscious of blushing to a terrible extent, but trying to throw up her eyebrows carelessly, and pout her rosy lips, as if she were the coolest and most unconcerned of little women.
Merrily the fountain plashed and plashed, until the dimples, merging into one another, swelled into a general smile, that covered the whole surface of the basin.
"What an extraordinary meeting!" said Tom. "I should never have dreamed of seeing you two together, here."
"Quite accidental," John was heard to murmur.
"Exactly," cried Tom; "that's what I mean, you know. If it wasn't accidental, there would be nothing remarkable in it."
"To be sure," said John.
"Such an out-of-the-way place for you to have met in," pursued Tom, quite delighted. "Such an unlikely spot!"
John rather disputed that. On the contrary, he considered it a very likely spot, indeed. He was constantly passing to and fro there, he said. He shouldn't wonder if it were to happen again. His only wonder was, that it had never happened before.
By this time Ruth had got round on the further side of her brother, and had taken his arm. She was squeezing it now, as much as to say, "Are you going to stop here ail day, you dear, old, blundering Tom?"
Tom answered the squeeze as if it had been a speech. "John," he said, "if you 'll give my sister your arm, we 'll take her between us, and walk on. I have a curious circumstance to relate to you. Our meeting could not have happened better."
Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the basin's rim, and vanished.
"Tom," said his friend, as they turned into the noisy street, "I have a proposition' to make. It is, that you and your sister—if she will so far honour a poor bachelor's dwelling—give me a great pleasure, and come and dine with me."
"What, to-day?" cried Tom.
"Yes, to-day. It's close by, you know. Pray, Miss Pinch, insist upon it. It will be very disinterested, for I have nothing to give you."
"Oh! you must not believe that, Ruth," said Tom. "He is the most tremendous fellow, in his housekeeping, that I ever heard of, for a single man. He ought to be Lord Mayor. Well! what do you say? Shall we go?"
"If you please, Tom," rejoined his dutiful little sister.
"But I mean," said Tom, regarding her with smiling admiration: "is there anything you ought to wear, and haven't got? I am sure I don't know, John: she may not be able to take her bonnet off, for anything I can tell."
There was a great deal of laughing at this, and there were divers compliments from John Westlock—not compliments, he said at least
