"Let me see it again, now you've got it back," she pleaded.

"You'll excuse me," he said; "but after what has taken place, I can't show that ring to anybody."

"Then you're a cross thing!" said Ada, pouting.

"What's the matter with you two, over there?" asked Bella, sleepily.

Ada's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Let me tell them; it is too awfully funny. I must!" she whispered to Leander. "It's all about a ring," she began, and enjoyed poor Tweddle's evident discomfort.

"A ring?" cried Bella, waking up. "Don't keep all the fun to yourselves; we've not had so much of it this evening."

"Miss Ada," said Leander, in great agitation, "I ask[Pg 44] you, as a lady, to treat what has happened this evening in the strictest confidence for the present!"

[Pg 44]

"Secrets, Ada?" cried her sister; "upon my word!"

"Why, where's the harm, Mr. Tweddle, now it's all settled?" exclaimed Ada. "Bella, it was only this: he went and put a ring (now do wait till I've done, Mr. Tweddle!) on a certain person's finger out in those Rosherwich Gardens (you see, I've not said whose finger)."

"Hullo, Tweddle!" cried Jauncy, in some bewilderment.

Leander could only cast a look of miserable appeal at him.

"Shall I tell them any more, Mr. Tweddle?" said Ada, persistently.

"I don't think there's any necessity," he pleaded.

"No more do I," put in Bella, archly. "I think we can guess the rest."

Ada did not absolutely make any further disclosures that evening; but for the rest of the journey she amused herself by keeping the hairdresser in perpetual torment by her pretended revelations, until he was thoroughly disgusted.

No longer could he admire her liveliness; he could not even see that she was good-looking now. "She's nothing but chaff, chaff, chaff!" he thought. "Thank goodness, Matilda isn't given that way. Chaff before marriage means nagging after!"

They reached the 

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