house in Maida Vale. He became conversant with the pattern of the
window curtains, and began to cultivate a lively interest in the
headgear of the "superior young person" who wheeled Miss Cameron's
go-cart. As a reward of his attentions, the "superior young person,"
whose encyclopaedic qualities were unbounded, certified to a fact he had
long suspected, that there was absolutely no sickness in the
establishment!

But Ralph Danby was happily unconscious of the delicate supervision of
man and maid, and pursued the even tenor of his way in a delightful
state of beatitude till one day he overstepped the bounds of public
thoroughfare and found himself face to face with a warning to
trespassers. In fact, he made an ass of himself and proposed.

Without rhyme or reason he placed his six-foot-three of cumbersome
manhood at the disposal of a woman from whom he afterwards confessed he
had never received the smallest encouragement. She had certainly never
objected to his continual presence, but, to those who have known each
other in a garrison town where daily meetings and calls are common,
visits are not noted with the same importance as metropolitan
formalities of like description.

Mrs Cameron had not yet returned to society, and consequently cultivated
few acquaintances. Her intimates called as frequently as Ralph, whose
arrival was never objectless. Sometimes there was a doll to be delivered
to Phoebe minor; occasionally he produced tickets for some lecture on
infancy or education; now and then he brought music which he especially
wished to hear (he could recognise "God Save the Queen" if played at the
end of a programme); and once he had ventured to offer flowers! But the
quick march came to an abrupt halt through his own folly. Because one
morning he found her with a complexion more like a rose petal than
usual, because the birds made a perfect din of song outside, and the
spring sun seemed to pour through every crack and cranny and say,
"Winter is past," he thought her heart must be as love-flushed as his
own. Always downright--blunt some people said--he invaded where angels
might have feared to tread.

"Mrs Cameron--Phoebe--I love you. Will you marry me? Will you let me
make you happy again?"

Two dove-grey eyes blinked wide with amazement; then, seeing the reality
of his emotion, she stepped back a pace, and seemed to freeze as she
stood.

The birds sounded discordantly; the sunshine lost all its warmth--it was