uld appear--a little--to give you up."

"A little? What do you call a little?"

Georgina said nothing, for a moment. "Well, that, for instance, you
should n't hold my hand quite so tight!" And she disengaged this
conscious member from the pressure of his arm.

"What good will that do?" Benyon asked,

"It will make them think it 's all over,--that we have agreed to part."

"And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?"

They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was lumbering
slowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face to
her lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last:
"Nothing will help us; I don't think we are very happy," she answered,
while her strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about her
beautiful lips.

"I don't understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say
you would marry me!" Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the
dray had passed.

"Oh, yes, I will marry you!" And she moved away, across the street. That
was the manner in which she had said it, and it was very characteristic
of her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished they were
somewhere else,--he hardly knew where the proper place would be,--so
that he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before they separated
that day he had said to her he hoped she remembered they would be very
poor, reminding her how great a change she would find it She answered
that she should n't mind, and presently she said that if this was all
that prevented them the sooner they were married the better. The next
time he saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but he found, to his
surprise, it was now her conviction that she had better not leave her
father's house. The ceremony should take place secretly, of course; but
they would wait awhile to let their union be known.

"What good will it do us, then?" Raymond Benyon asked.

Georgina colored. "Well, if you don't know, I can't tell you!"

Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he could
not see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. When
he asked what special event they were to wait for, and what should give
them the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her parents
would probably forgive her, if they were to discover, not too abruptly,
after six months, that she had taken the great step. Benyon supposed
that she had ceased to care whether th