Bella tucked her arm in his with a merry noiseless laugh, and they went down to the kitchen on tiptoe; she stopping on every separate stair to put the tip of her forefinger on her rosy lips, and then lay it on his lips, according to her favourite petting way of kissing Pa.

“How do you feel, my love?” asked R. W. , as she gave him his breakfast.

“I feel as if the fortune-teller was coming true, dear Pa, and the fair little man was turning out as was predicted.”

“Ho! Only the fair little man?” said her father.

Bella put another of those finger-seals upon his lips, and then said, kneeling down by him as he sat at table: “Now, look here, sir. If you keep well up to the mark this day, what do you think you deserve? What did I promise you should have, if you were good, upon a certain occasion?”