Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/254

 one minute before the appointed time; and five minutes later I saw Her coming downstairs.

I have 'sometimes caught a glimpse of her in the evenings, dressed for dinner at' good hotels, and her frocks are like herself, always the most perfect. To-night she had no luggage except a bag I had carried, nevertheless she had somehow achieved a costume in which she was a vision. Perhaps if I were a woman I should have seen that she had on her day-skirt, with an evening bodice, but being merely a man over his ears in love, I can only tell you that the effect was dazzling. In admiration of her I forgot my own transformation until I saw her pretty eyebrows go up with surprise.

I felt my heart thump behind my rather jolly white waistcoat. On the second step from the bottom she stopped and exclaimed, "Why, Brown, how nice you look! You're exactly like a" There she stopped, getting deliciously pink, as if she'd been a naughty child pinched by a "grown-up" in the midst of a malapropos remark. I could fill up the blank for myself, and was highly complimented by her opinion that I was "exactly like a gentleman." I explained that the clothes were Mr. Winston's, and had been donned with a highly laudable motive. It was evident that she approved both cause and effect; and we went in to dinner together.

I can't describe to you, my boy, the pure delight of that moment; the pride I felt in her beauty, the new and intoxicating sense of possession born of the tête-à-tête. But if you could have seen the lovely shadow her eyelashes made on her cheeks as she sat