"These may be New York manners," he said sourly, "but they would never
do in a _civilized city_!"

His opinion was a matter of indifference to the couple.

They are supposed to have talked very little, but danced frequently
together. As the young ladies were putting on their capes and cloaks,
just before the dawn, one among them shrieked suddenly across the room.

"Why, Lilda! where is your flame-coloured scarf! You've lost it!"

"I gave it away," she said briefly.

They gasped.

"Good heavens!" said another. "He'll be proposing before you know it!"

"He proposed at twelve," Miss Appleyard said placidly, "and I accepted
him. Will you be maid-of-honour, Evelyn?"

No one had ever told her of John I and his gypsy.

They had a wonderful wedding-tour among the Italian lakes and came back
after a three months' honeymoon to the solid "brown stone front" of the
period, which, furnished from cellar to attic, had been John's wedding
gift to his daughter.

"Well!" some gossip had cried, "it's big enough, in all conscience!
But I suppose Mr. Appleyard was thinking of the size of Elliot's
family." (He was one of eight children and had nine uncles and aunts.)

"None of us has ever had but two," said Lilda calmly, "and the
Appleyards don't change, papa says."

And as a matter of fact little Elliot Lestrange never had but one
contestant for nursery rights--his fair-haired, gentle sister.

"I wonder which of the children will be the 'wild one'?" Lilda asked
her husband one night, as they sat opposite each other in the great,
high-ceilinged dining-room. They were, for a marvel, alone, and unlike
the ordinary quiet jog-trot couple who welcome any casual stranger to
break the monotony of five years of table tete-a-tete, they delighted
in this happy chance that recalled their honeymoon meals together.
They were so much sought after, and Lestrange's position required so
much and such varied entertaining, that they could not remember when,
before, the attentive coloured butler had had but two glasses to fill.

Lestrange looked admiringly at his handsome wife. Never had he ceased
to bless the day he married her. He was a proud man, conventional and
ambitious to a degree, and at moments during his short betrothal period
he had felt threatening chills of doubt when away from his enchantress
as to the wisdom of such a feverishly short acquaintance, such a
sudden, almost dramatic alliance. Never for a moment would he have