allus ungrateful. For the sake o' your handsome face,
now, he'd go to you if he could, forgetful of all my kindness to him.
Well, 'tis the way o' the world, I believe," winds up old Joe, rising
from his knees,--cheered, perhaps, by the thought that his favorite
pup, if only following the common dictates of animals, is no worse
than all others.

He grumbles something else in an undertone, and finally carries off
the puppy to his kennel.

"I am too amazed for speech," says Sir James, rising also to his feet,
and contemplating Clarissa with admiration. "That man," pointing to
Joe's retiring figure, "has been in my father's service, and in mine,
for fifty years, and never before did I hear a civil word from his
lips. I think he said your face was handsome, just now?--or was I
deceived?"

"I like Joe," says Miss Peyton, elevating her rounded chin: "I
downright esteem him. He knows where beauty lies."

"How he differs from the rest of the world!" says Scrope, not looking
at her.

"Does he? That is unkind, I think. Why," says Clarissa, with a soft
laugh, full of mischief, "should any one be blind to the claims of
beauty?"

"Why, indeed? It is, as I have been told, 'a joy forever.' No one
nowadays disputes anything they are told, do they?"

"Don't be cynical, Jim," says Miss Peyton, softly. What an awful thing
it will be if, now when her story is absolutely upon her lips, he
relapses into his unsympathetic mood!

"Well, I won't, then," says Scrope, amiably, which much relieves her.
And then he looks lovingly at his pipe, which he has held (as in duty
bound) behind his back ever since her arrival, and sighs heavily, and
proceeds to knock the ashes out of it.

"Oh, don't do that," says Clarissa, entreatingly. "I really wish you
wouldn't!" (This is the strict truth.) "You know you are dying for a
smoke, and I--I perfectly love the smell of tobacco. There is,
therefore, no reason why you should deny yourself."

"Are you really quite sure?" says Scrope, politely and hopefully.

"Quite,--utterly. Put it in your mouth again. And--do you mind?"--with
a swift glance upwards, from under her soft plush hat,--"I want you to
come for a little walk with me."

"To the end of the world, with _you_, would be a short walk," says
Scrope, with a half laugh, but a ring in his tone that, to a woman
heart-whole and unoccupied with thoughts of another man, must have
meant much. "Command me, madam."

"I have something very--very--_ver