"I 'll punish him terribly if he don't let you alone."
Bessie seized him by the arm and compelled him to halt.
"Tom dear," she asked, "what will you do?"
"I--I--I 'll dedicate a volume of my poems to him, if he don't look out," declared Moore, yielding to the girl's calming influence.
"But I am not going to London," laughed Bessie, "so you 'll let him off this time, won't you, Tom?"
"You promise you will not go, Bessie?" asked Moore, earnestly, taking her hands in his.
"I promise that while you are as true and kind as you have been to-day, I 'll not even think of it again,"' she answered, soberly.
"True?" repeated Moore, tenderly. "Why, every thought of mine has been faithful since first I met you. Kind? The devil himself could n't be anything but sweet to you, I 'm sure."
Bessie drew her hands away, satisfied that she had made sure of the public peace continuing unfractured so far as her lover was concerned.
"Now," she said, in pretty imitation of his previous cross speech, "now you can do your arithmetic."