d it--I say it. Do you think I am too bold, darling? Ought I to
go on my knees, love, and make you a formal offer? Why I have loved you
all my life; and I think you have loved me as long."

"So I have, Rorie," she answered softly, shyly, sweetly. "I forswore
myself that night in the fir-wood. I always loved you; there was no
stage of my life when you were not dearer to me than anyone on earth,
except my father."

"Dear love, I am ashamed of my happiness," said Roderick tenderly. "I
have been so weak and unworthy. I gave away my hopes of bliss in one
foolishly soft moment, to gratify my mother's dying wish--a wish that
had been dinned into my ear the last years of her life--and I have done
nothing but repent my folly ever since. Can you forgive me, Violet? I
shall never forgive myself."

"Let the past be like a dream that we have dreamt. It will make the
future seem so much the brighter."

"Yes."

And then under the blue August sky, fearless and unabashed, these happy
lovers gave each other the kiss of betrothal.

"What am I to do with you?" Vixen asked laughingly. "I ought to go home
to Les Tourelles."

"Don't you think you might take me with you? I am your young man now,
you know. I hope it is not a case of 'no followers allowed.'"

"I'm afraid Miss Skipwith will feel disappointed in me. She thought I
was going to have a mission."

"A mission!"

"Yes; that I was going for theology. And for it all to end in my being
engaged to be married! It seems such a commonplace ending, does it not?"

"Decidedly. As commonplace as the destiny of Adam and Eve, whom God
joined together in Eden. Take me back to Les Tourelles, Vixen. I think
I shall be able to manage Miss Skipwith."

They left the battlements, and descended the narrow stairs, and went
side by side, through sunlit fields and lanes, to the old Carolian
manor house, happy with that unutterable, immeasurable joy which
belongs to happy love, and to love only; whether it be the romantic
passion of a Juliet leaning from her balcony, the holy bliss of a
mother hanging over her child's cradle, or the sober affection of the
wife who has seen the dawn and close of a silver wedding and yet loves
on with love unchangeable--a monument of constancy in an age of easy
divorce.

The distance was long; but to these two the walk was of the shortest.
It was as if they trod on flowers or airy cloud, so lightly fell their
footsteps on the happy earth.

What would Miss Skipw