They never told their love, and yet, as the old song says:
"But if ne'er so close ye wall him,
Do the best that ye may,
Blind Love, if so ye call him,
He will find out his way."
Miss Marty had found out a way.
The Major's house, as you have been told, looked down the length of
Fore Street; and on the left hand (the harbour side) of Fore Street,
at some seventy yards' distance, Dr. Hansombody resided over his
dispensary, or, as he preferred to call it, his "Medical Hall."
The house stood aligned with its neighbours but overtopped them by an
attic storey; and in the north side of this attic a single window
looked up the street to the Major's windows--Miss Marty's among the
rest--and was visible from them.
Behind this attic window the Doctor, when released from professional
labours, would sit and read, or busy himself in arranging his cases
of butterflies, of which he had a famous collection; and somehow--I
cannot tell you when or how, except that it began in merest
innocence--Miss Marty had learnt to signal with her window-blind and
the Doctor to reply with his. This evening, for instance, by
lowering her blind to the foot of the second pane from the top, Miss
Marty had telegraphed,--
"The Major requests you to call and take wine with him."
The Doctor drew his blind down rapidly and as rapidly raised it
again. This said, "I come at once," and Miss Marty knew that it
added, "On the wings of love!"
A slight agitation of the lower left-hand corner of her blind
supplemented the message thus,--
"There will be brown sherry.
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