e asked, gayly.

"Miss Milroy!" repeated Allan. "What are you thinking of! I'm not in
love with Miss Milroy."

"Who is it, then?"

"Who is it! What a question to ask! Who can it be but Miss Gwilt?"

There was a sudden silence. Allan sat listlessly, with his hands in his
pockets, looking out through the open window at the falling rain. If
he had turned toward his friend when he mentioned Miss Gwilt's name he
might possibly have been a little startled by the change he would have
seen in Midwinter's face.

"I suppose you don't approve of it?" he said, after waiting a little.

There was no answer.

"It's too late to make objections," proceeded Allan. "I really mean it
when I tell you I'm in love with her."

"A fortnight since you were in love with Miss Milroy," said the other,
in quiet, measured tones.

"Pooh! a mere flirtation. It's different this time. I'm in earnest about
Miss Gwilt."

He looked round as he spoke. Midwinter turned his face aside on the
instant, and bent it over a book.

"I see you don't approve of the thing," Allan went on. "Do you object to
her being only a governess? You can't do that, I'm sure. If you were
in my place, her being only a governess wouldn't stand in the way with
_you_?"

"No," said Midwinter; "I can't honestly say it would stand in the way
with me." He gave the answer reluctantly, and pushed his chair back out
of the light of the lamp.

"A governess is a lady who is not rich," said Allan, in an oracular
manner; "and a duchess is a lady who is not poor. And that's all the
difference I acknowledge between them. Miss Gwilt is older than I am--I
don't deny that. What age do you guess her at, Midwinter? I say, seven
or eight and twenty. What do you say?"

"Nothing. I agree with you."

"Do you think seven or eight and twenty is too old for me? If you were
in love with a woman yourself, you wouldn't think seven or eight and
twenty too old--would you?"

"I can't say I should think it too old, if--"

"If you were really fond of her?"

Once more there was no answer.

"Well," resumed Allan, "if there's no harm in her being only a
governess, and no harm in her being a little older than I am, what's the
objection to Miss Gwilt?"

"I have made no objection."

"I don't say you have. But you don't seem to like the notion of it, for
all that."

There was another pause. Midwinter was the first to break the silence
this time.

"Are you sure of yourself, Allan?" he asked, wi