have her back! She did not have to say anything,
for Ralph went rapidly on.

"But before they leave Barport," he said, "I want to send Miriam a
telegram. If Mike takes it immediately to Thorbury, she will get it
before her train leaves."

"A telegram!" exclaimed Cicely, but she did not look up at him.

"Yes," said he; "I want to telegraph to Miriam that you and I are
engaged to be married. I want her to know it before she gets here. Shall
I send it?"

She raised to him a face more brightly hued than any peach
blossom--rich with the color of the ripe fruit. Ten minutes after this,
two wood doves, sitting in a tree to the east of the lettuce bed, and
looking westward, turned around on their twig and looked toward the
east. They were sunny-minded little creatures, and did not like to be
cast into the shade.

As they went out of the garden gate, Cicely said, "You have always been a
very independent person and accustomed to doing very much as you please,
haven't you?"

"It has been something like that," answered Ralph; "but why?"

"Only this," she said; "would you begin already to chafe and rebel if I
were to ask you not to send that telegram? It would be so much nicer to
tell her after she gets back."

"Chafe!" exclaimed Ralph, "I should think not. I will do exactly as
you wish."

"You are awfully good," said Cicely, "but you must agree with me more
prudently now that we are out here, and I will not tell mother until
Miriam knows."

A gray old chanticleer, who was leading his hens across the yard,
stopped at this moment and looked at Ralph, but it is not certain that
he sniffed.

Ralph knew very well when people, coming from Barport, should arrive in
Thorbury, but his mind was so occupied that when he went to the barn, he
forgot so many things he should have done at the house, and he ran
backward and forward so often, and waited so long for an opportunity to
say something he had just thought of, to somebody who did not happen to
be ready to listen at the precise moment he wished to speak, that he had
just stepped into the gig to go to the station for his sister, when
Miriam arrived alone in the Bannister carriage. Not finding anybody at
the station to meet her, they had sent her on.

Mrs. Drane was not the liveliest person at the dinner table, and she
wondered much how Ralph and Cicely, who had been so extremely sober at
breakfast time, should now be so hilarious. The arrival of Miriam seemed
hardly reason