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all round them. They both felt a peculiar sense of pleasure and companionship in thus being together—a pleasure not altogether damped by the slight fragrance of forbidden fruit which pervaded the situation. Alice was vaguely aware that there was something not quite en règle in thus spending her afternoon, and thought that very probably she was breaking some unpublished law in so doing. Well, if it were so, she would pay the price. The Medes and Persians might be scandalized, but she would bid defiance to their wrath for one day—just for this one long, lovely, but now swiftly-fading afternoon.

Arthur seemed much in the same frame of mind, but at last he broke the spell, and opened the note which she had handed to him. It contained one line only, written in Lizzie’s large straggling hand, with the thickest of quill-pens, but with no address or signature. He read the words over two or three times: “I don’t believe she is engaged—ask her yourself.”

At last he handed the little note over to Alice. “Will you be so kind as to answer this for me?” he said, just as if he had asked her to pass the cream-jug.

She started and looked blankly at the paper; then replied in a rather frigid tone, “I haven’t the slightest idea of what you mean.”