“Nay, come, what a question! What makes you ask it, Missy?”
“Because I've given you no proof. I brought an introduction with me and I went and forgot to give it to you. However, here it is, so you may as well put it in your pipe and smoke it.”
She took some letters out of her pocket as she spoke, and shifted the top one to the bottom until she came to an envelope that had never been through the post. This she handed up to David, who recognised his old friend's writing, which indeed had caught his eye on most of the other envelopes also. And when she had put these back in her pocket she held out her dirty-gloved hand.
“So long,” she said. “You won't know me when I turn up on Monday.”
“Stop!” cried David. “You must let me know when to send the buggy for you, and where to. It'll never do to have you coming out in the 'bus again.”
“Right you are. I'll let you know. So long again—and see here. I think you're the sweetest and trustingest old man in the world!”
She was far ahead, this time, before the buggy was under way again.
“Naturally,” chuckled David, following her hair through the crowd. “I should hope so, indeed, when it's a child of John William Oliver, and one that you can love for her own sake an' all! But what made her look so sorry when she gave me the kiss? And what's this? Nay, come, I must have made a mistake!”
He had flattered himself that his eyes never left the portals where they had lost sight of the red hair, and when he got up to it what should it be but the stage door? The words were painted over it as plain as that. The mistake might be Missy's; but a little waiting by the curb convinced Mr. Teesdale that it was his own; for Missy never came back, as he argued she must have done if she really had gone in at the stage door.