Well, no one will deny that Sunday comes after Saturday; and it was Saturday evening, when the heavens painted themselves with fire, and the sun lit up all the house-windows to welcome us home.

Sunday is not usually one of our blandest days, but we must hope for the best.
"General," say I, standing before him, dressed for morning church, after having previously turned slowly round on the point of my toes, to favor him with the back view of as delightful a bonnet, and as airily fresh and fine a muslin gown, as ever young woman said her prayers in--"by-the-by, do you like my calling you general ?" "At least I understand who you mean by it," he says, a little evasively; "which, after all, is the great thing, is not it ?" "It is my own invention," say I, rather proudly; "nobody put it into my head, and nobody else calls you by it, do they ?" "Not now." "_Not now ?_" cry I, surprised; "but did they ever ?" "Yes," he says, "for about a year, most people did; I was general a year before my brother died." "_Your brother died ?_" cry I, again repeating his words, and arching my eyebrows, which have not naturally the slightest tendency toward describing a semicircle.

"What! _you_ had a brother, too, had you?
I never knew that before." "Did you think _you_ had a monopoly of them ?" laughing a little.
"So you were not 'Sir' always ?" "No more than _you_ are," he answers, smiling.

"No, I was not born in the purple; for thirty-seven years of my life I earned my own bread--and rather dry bread too." "You do not say so!" cry I, in some astonishment.
"If I had come here seven years ago," he says, taking both my pale yellow hands in his light gray ones, and looking at me with eyes which seem darker and deeper than usual under the shade of the brim of his tall hat--"by-the-by, you would have been a little girl then--as little as Tou Tou--" "Yes," interrupt I, breaking in hastily; "but, indeed, I never was a bit like her, never.

I _never_ had such legs--ask the boys if I had!" "I did not suppose that you had," he answers, bursting into a hearty and most unfeigned laugh! "but" (growing grave again), "Nancy, suppose that I had come here then! I should have had no shooting to offer the boys--no horses to mount Algy--no house worth asking Barbara to--" "No more you would!" say I, too much impressed with surprise at this new light on Sir Roger's past life to notice the sort of wistfulness and inquiry that lurks in his last words; then, after a second, perceiving it: "And you think," say I, loosing my hands from his, and growing as pink as the delicate China rose-bud that is peeping round the corner of the trellis in at the window, "that there would not have been as much inducement _then_ for me to propose to you, as there was in the present state of things!" I am laughing awkwardly as I speak; then, eagerly changing the conversation, and rushing into another subject: "By-the-by, I had something to say to you--something quite important--before we digressed." "Yes ?" "O general!" taking hold of the lapel of his coat, and looking up at him with appealing earnestness, "do you know that I have made up my mind to give _him_ the _bag_ to-day! it is no use putting off the evil day--it _must_ come, after supper--they all say _after supper_!" "Yes ?" "Well, I want you to talk to him _all day_, and get him into a good-humor by then, if you can, that is all!" "_That is all!_" repeats my husband, with the slightest possible ironical accent.