The dining-room was at its slack water, between the ebb of breakfast and before the flow of the preparation for the midday meal.

He could not have his interview with Kitty in that dreary waste of reversed chairs and bare trestlelike tables, and she was possibly engaged in her household duties.

But Miss Kitty had already seen him cross the road, and had lounged into the dining-room with an artfully simulated air of casually examining it.

At the unexpected vision of his hopes, arrayed in the sweetest and freshest of rosebud-sprigged print, his heart faltered.
Then, partly with the desperation of a timid man, and partly through the working of a half-formed resolution, he met her bright smile with a simple inquiry for her father.

Miss Kitty bit her pretty lip, smiled slightly, and preceded him with great formality to the office.