Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/307

Rh "I am leaving Bruges to-morrow."

"No; your sixth-form girl will be too tired, and besides—"

"Besides?"

"Oh, a thousand things! Don't leave Bruges yet; it's so 'quaint,' you know; and—and I want to introduce you to—"

"I won't," said Elizabeth almost violently.

"You won't?"

"No; I don't want to know your wife."

He stopped short in the street—not one of the "quaint" streets, but a deserted street of tall, square-shuttered, stern, dark mansions, wherein a gas-lamp or two flickered timidly.

"My wife?" he said; "it's my aunt."

"It said 'Mrs. Brown' in the visitors' list," faltered Elizabeth.

"Brown's such an uncommon name," he said; "my aunt spells hers with an E."

"Oh! with an E? Yes, of course. I spell my name with an E too, only it's at the wrong end."

Elizabeth began to laugh, and the next moment to cry helplessly.

"Oh, Elizabeth! and you looked in the