tled during that walk. Within five minutes of
the time in which she had declared that it was too late for her
to go to church, she had brought herself to talk to him with all
the delightful confidence of a completed engagement. She made him
understand at once that there was no longer any doubt. "A girl must
have time to know," she said, when he half-reproached her with the
delay. A girl wasn't like a man, she said, who could just make up his
mind at once,--a girl had to wait and see. But she was quite sure of
this,--that having once said the word she would never go back from
it. She didn't quite know when she had first begun to love him, but
she thought it was when she heard that he had made up his mind to
stand for Percycross. It seemed to her to be such a fine thing,--his
going to Percycross. "Then," said Ontario, gallantly, "Percycross has
done ten times more for me than it would have done, had it simply
made me a member of Parliament." Once, twice, and oftener he was
made happier than he could have been had fortune made him a Prime
Minister. For Polly, now that she had given her heart and promised
her hand, would not coy her lips to the man she had chosen.

Many things were settled between them. Polly told her lover all her
trouble about Ralph Newton, and it was now that she received that
advice from her "very particular friend, Mr. Moggs," which she
followed in writing to her late suitor. The letter was to be written
and posted that afternoon, and then shown to her father. We know
already that in making the copy for her father she omitted one
clause,--having resolved that she would tell her mother of her
engagement, and that her mother should communicate it to her father.
As for naming any day for their marriage, "That was out of the
question," she said. She did not wish to delay it; but all that
she could do was to swear to her father that she would never marry
anybody else. "And he'll believe me too," said Polly. As for eloping,
she would not hear of it. "Just that he might have an excuse to give
his money to somebody else," she said.

"I don't care for his money," protested Moggs.

"That's all very well; but money's a good thing in its way. I hate a
man who'd sell himself; he's a mean fellow;--or a girl either. Money
should never be first. But as for pitching it away just because
you're in a hurry, I don't believe in that at all. I'm not going
to be an old woman yet, and you may wait a few months very well."