If he had known that I was in so reduced a state that I should have enjoyed a colloquy with a chimney-sweep, and not despised exchanging opinions with a dustman, he would not have thought my admission worth much.
"So you have come at last," he says, holding my hand, and looking at me with those long dark eyes that I would swear were black had not a conscientious and thorough daylight scrutiny of them assured me long ago that they were hazel.
"Yes," say I, cheerfully; "I told you you would catch sight of us, sooner or later, if you waited long enough." "And your tenants never dragged you in, after all ?" "No," say I; "we did not give them the chance.

But how do _you_ know?
Were you peeping out of your lodge?
If I had remembered that you lived there, I would have been on the lookout for you." "You had, of course, entirely forgotten so insignificant a fact ?" he says, with a tone of pique.
That happy one! how well I recollect it! I feel quite fondly toward it; it reminds me so strongly of the Linkesches Bad, of the brisk band, and of Roger smoking and smiling at me with his gray eyes across our Mai-trank.
"Yes," I say, contritely, "I am ashamed to say I had--_quite_; but you see I have had a good many things to think of lately." At this point it strikes me that he must have forgotten that he has my hand, so I quietly, and without offense, resume it.
"And you are _alone_--Sir Roger has left you quite _alone_ here ?" "Yes," say I, lachrymosely; "is not it _dreadful_?
I never was so miserable in my life; I do not think I _ever_ was by myself for a _whole_ night before, and"-- (lowering my voice to a nervous whisper)--"they tell me there is a ghost somewhere about.

Did you ever hear of it ?--and the furniture gives _such_ cracks!" "And--he has gone _by himself_ ?" he continues, still harping on the same string, as if unable to leave it.
"Yes," reply I, laconically, hanging my head, for this is a topic on which I feel always guilty, and never diffuse.
"H'm!" he says, ruminatingly, and as if addressing the remark more to himself than to me.

"I suppose it _is_ difficult to get out of old habits, and into new ones, all of a sudden." "I do not know what you mean by old habits and new habits," cry I, angrily; "if you think he did not want me to go with him, you are very much mistaken; he would have much rather that I had." "But _you_," looking at me penetratingly, and speaking with a sort of alacrity, "you did not see it?
I remember of old" (with a smile) "your abhorrence of the sea." "You are wrong again," say I, reddening, and still speaking with some heat, "I _wished_ to go--I begged him to take me.

However sick I had been, I should have liked it better than being left moping here, without a soul to speak to!" Silence for a moment.