th cheeks. "My dear, dear child, you can't tell how
glad I am. From the very first I've said you were made for one another.
And I thought all the time that you'd told him you wouldn't have him."

"I did," said Laura. Her manner was quiet. She seemed a little grave.
"I told him I did not love him. Only last week I told him so."

"Well, then, why did you promise?"

"My goodness!" exclaimed Laura, with a show of animation. "You don't
realize what it's been. Do you suppose you can say 'no' to that man?"

"Of course not, of course not," declared Mrs. Cressler joyfully.
"That's 'J.' all over. I might have known he'd have you if he set out
to do it."

"Morning, noon, and night," Laura continued. "He seemed willing to wait
as long as I wasn't definite; but one day I wrote to him and gave him a
square 'No,' so as he couldn't mistake, and just as soon as I'd said
that he--he--began. I didn't have any peace until I'd promised him, and
the moment I had promised he had a ring on my finger. He'd had it ready
in his pocket for weeks it seems. No," she explained, as Mrs. Cressler
laid her fingers upon her left hand, "That I would not have--yet."

"Oh, it was like 'J.' to be persistent," repeated Mrs. Cressler.

"Persistent!" murmured Laura. "He simply wouldn't talk of anything
else. It was making him sick, he said. And he did have a fever--often.
But he would come out to see me just the same. One night, when it was
pouring rain--Well, I'll tell you. He had been to dinner with us, and
afterwards, in the drawing-room, I told him 'no' for the hundredth time
just as plainly as I could, and he went away early--it wasn't eight. I
thought that now at last he had given up. But he was back again before
ten the same evening. He said he had come back to return a copy of a
book I had loaned him--'Jane Eyre' it was. Raining! I never saw it rain
as it did that night. He was drenched, and even at dinner he had had a
low fever. And then I was sorry for him. I told him he could come to
see me again. I didn't propose to have him come down with pneumonia, or
typhoid, or something. And so it all began over again."

"But you loved him, Laura?" demanded Mrs. Cressler. "You love him now?"

Laura was silent. Then at length:

"I don't know," she answered.

"Why, of course you love him, Laura," insisted Mrs. Cressler. "You
wouldn't have promised him if you hadn't. Of course you love him, don't
you?"

"Yes, I--I suppose I must love him, or--as you s