CHAPTER V.
THE SHADOW OF ARCHIBALD.
It is not only children who, having once tasted bliss, suppose fondly that one has only to prepare a time and place for it again and it can be repeated.

But he must be a queer child who starts with expecting any less.

Certainly no doubts assailed me when the anniversary came round and I made my way to Mr.Tucker's Bun Shop; nor did Miss Plinlimmon's greeting lack anything of tenderness.

She began at once to talk away merrily: but children are demons to detect something amiss, and there was a note in her gaiety which somehow did not sound in key.

After a while she broke off in the middle of a sentence and sat stirring her tea, as with a mind withdrawn; recovered herself, and catching at her last words, continued--but on a different subject; then, reading some puzzlement in my eyes, exclaimed abruptly, "My dear Harry, you have grown beyond knowledge!" "Were you thinking of that ?" I asked, for I had heard it twice already.
She answered one question with another.