But you see _I_ couldn't take anything for granted but just
what I saw that day; and the little memorandum-book and Fanny's
reminiscences nearly killed me. I don't know how I sat through it all.
I tried to avoid you all the rest of the day. I wanted to think, and
to find out the truth from Fanny."
"I should think you _did_ avoid me pretty successfully, leaving me to
dine coldly at the hotel, and then driving all the afternoon till
train-time."
"It was in talking to Fanny that afternoon that I discovered how she
felt toward you. She has no concealment about her, not any, and I
could read her heart plainly enough. But then she hinted at her
father's treatment of you; thought he had discouraged you, rebuffed
you, and reasoned so that I fairly thought there might be truth in it,
_remembering it was before you knew me."_
"Listen one minute, Bessie, till I explain that. It's my belief, and
always was, that that shrewd old fellow, Henry Meyrick, saw very
clearly how matters were all along--saw how the impetuous Miss Fanny
was--"
"_Falling in love_: don't pause for a 'more tenderer word,' Charlie.
Sam Weller couldn't find any."
"Well, falling in love, if you _will_ say it--and that it was
decidedly a difficult situation for me. I remember so well that night
on the piazza, when Fanny clung about me like a mermaid, he bade her
sharply go and change her dripping garments, and what Fanny calls 'a
decidedly queer' expression came into his face.
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