"Read it," said Fanny, settling herself composedly in her shawl, and leaning back against a tree with half-shut eyes.
"'September 28th'" Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love him for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the Hudson—moonlight—I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and swam with me to shore.'"
A dead silence as Bessie closed the book and held it in her hand.
"Oh," said I lightly, "that isn't worth chronicling—that! It was no question of saving lives. The New York boat was coming up, if I remember."
"Yes, it was in trying to steer away from it that I dropped my oar."
"So you see it would have picked us up, any how. There was nothing but the ducking to remember."
"Such a figure, Bessie! Imagine us running along the road to the gate! I could scarcely move for my dripping skirts; and we frightened papa so when we stepped up on the piazza out of the moonlight!"
To stop this torrent of reminiscences, which, though of nothings, I could see was bringing the red spot to Bessie's cheek, I put out my hand for the book: "Let me write something down to-day;" and I hastily scribbled: "September 28. Charles Munro and Bessie Stewart, to sail for Europe in ten days, ask of their friend Fanny Meyrick her warm congratulations."
"Will that do?" I whispered as I handed the book to Bessie.
"Not at all," said Bessie scornfully and coldly, tearing out the leaf as she spoke and crumpling it in her hand.—"Sorry to spoil your book, Fanny dear, but the sentiment would have spoiled it more. Let us go home."