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deserted spot by this time, they stood invisible for a little while in the shadow of a wall, where they separated, Anna going on to the entrance, and her acquaintance returning across the square.
"Anna,” aaid Mre. Harnham, coming up. “I’ve been looking at you! That young man kissed you at parting, I am almost sure.”
“Well,” stammered Anna, “he said if I didn’t mind, it would do me no harm, and—and—him a great deal of good !”
“Ah, I thought sof And he was a stranger till to-night ?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Yet I warrant you told him your name and everything about yourself ?”
“He asked me.”
"But be didn’t tell you his ?”
“Yes, ma’am, he did!” cried Anna, victoriously. “It is Charles Bradford, of London.”
“ Well, if he’s respectable, of course I’ve nothing to Bay against your knowing him,” remarked her mistress, prepossessed, in spite of general principles, in the young man’s favor. “But I must reconsider all that if he attempta to renew your acquaintance. A country-bred girl like you, who has never lived in Melchester till this month, who had hardly ever seen a black-coated man till you came here, to be so sharp as to capture a young Londover like him !”
“I didn’t capture him. I didn’t do anything,” said Anna, in confusion.
When she was in-doors and alone Mrs. Harnham thought what a well-bred and chivalrous young man Anna’s companion had seemed. There had been a magico in his wooing touch of her hand, and she wondered how he had come to be attracted by the girl.
The next morning the emotional Edith Harnham