"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 visitors' list and—" He caught her in his arms there in the street. "No; you can't get away. I'm wiser than I was three years ago. I shall never let you go any more, my dear."
The girl from the sixth looked quite resentfully at the two faces that met her at the station. It seemed hardly natural or correct for a classical mistress to look so happy.
Elizabeth's lover schemed for and got a goodnight word with her at the top of the stairs, by the table where the beautiful brass candlesticks lay waiting in shining rows.