"Brave Joshua!" she exclaimed. "Isn't he a hero, Susan?"
Notwithstanding that she had not recovered from her fright at meeting the Lascar, Susan could not help smiling at Ellen's enthusiasm.
"He was to be away a year," said Ellen, "and it is now two years and four months."
"And how many weeks, and how many days, and how many hours?" interrupted Susan, half gayly. "You could tell, I dare say. Ellen, couldn't you, if you were put to it?" Ellen looked shyly at Susan. "What a change he will find in you, my dear!" Susan continued tenderly. "In the place of a plain little girl he will find a very pretty woman."
"O Susey! calling me a woman!"
"Well, you are, dear, or you will be when he comes back. I wonder"--
But Susan did not say what it was she wondered at, but stopped, most unaccountably, in the middle of the street and kissed Ellen in a motherly kind of way. The caress set Ellen a-blushing, and she fell into a state of happy musing. They were very near home when a voice at their side said,--
"You thought you had escaped me, eh?"
It was the voice of the Lascar, who had dogged them until he found an opportunity of speaking to them without attracting attention. Their hearts beat fast, but they did not turn their heads.
"Don't say a word," whispered Ellen, "don't speak, don't stop, don't look! We shall be home directly."