nt and sat in like manner
on Dolores', and if he did, what the little imp of mischief said to her.

But time flew, long as the interval seemed at first between February
and April.

I did not see half as much of my Dolores as I could have wished; Mrs.
Darbyshire and a host of other ladies absorbed her.

After a week or two my cousin Ethel joined her sage counsels to the
rest in the matter of the bridesmaids' dresses. She herself was to be
the chief of that important band, to which sundry male recruits in the
shape of small boys were to be added by way of pages.

I never could quite gather how Ethel took my engagement. Her
congratulation assumed the form of a short note.

"Dear Bill," it ran, "so you've done it!

"Well, dear old fellow, I saw it was a dead certainty at Valoro, and I
congratulate you both and wish you every happiness with all my heart.

"Dear little Dolores is a right good sort, and if I were a man I think
I should fall in love with her myself. I am sure she will make you
happy; mind you take care of her!

"There is one thing I am sure you will be glad to hear.

"Give her a season or two over an easy country to begin with, and I
assure you she will ride to hounds as well as any girl born and bred in
the Shires. Believe me, dear Bill, I am speaking seriously, and you
know me too well to think I would deceive you on such a matter.

"I leave you to teach her to shoot; I think every girl should be able
to handle a gun; it gives her something to talk about to other girls'
brothers."

This was the gist of the letter, and I put it aside with a sigh,
wondering whether dear old Ethel would ever marry herself. In that
mood, I regretted that I had ever lingered in those dear old corridors
at Bannington when the moonbeams slanted through the mullions of the
narrow old Tudor windows, and Ethel came down the broad oaken staircase
with a look of well simulated surprise in her eyes at finding me there,
dressed early for dinner and waiting for her to surrender those red
lips of hers in a cousinly kiss.

_Cousinly?_

Well, regrets were unavailing; I could not call the kisses back again,
and how was I to know I was going to meet Dolores and of course fall
straightway in love with her?

That is the way a man argues himself into a comfortable state of mind
when his half forgotten peccadilloes of meanness spring up and prick
him!

St. Nivel came round daily with his sister, and, to use his own
expre