is a distasteful subject? You are really glad your
engagement with him is at an end?"

"Of course I am glad," says Miss Blount, impatiently; "why should I be
otherwise? How often have you told me yourself that he and I were
unsuited to each other--and how many times have you reminded me of his
unbearable temper! I hope," with passionate energy, "I shall never see
him again!"

"Let us forget him," says Gower, gently; "there are plenty of other
things to discuss besides him. For one thing, let me tell you this--that
though we have been engaged for a long time now, you have never once
kissed me."

"Yes--and don't you know why?" asks Miss Blount, sweetly, and with all
the air of one who is about to impart the most agreeable
intelligence--"Can't you guess? It is because I think kissing a
_mistake_. Not only a mistake, but a positive _betise_. It commonizes
everything, and--and--is really death to sentiment in my opinion."

"Death to it?--an aid to it, I should say," says Mr. Gower, bluntly.

"Should you? I am sure experience will prove you wrong," says Dulce,
suavely, "and, at all events, I hate being kissed."

"Do you? Yet twice I saw you let your cousin kiss you," says Stephen,
gloomily.

"And see what came of it," retorts she, quickly. "He got--that is--we
_both_ got tired of each other. And then we quarrelled--we were always
quarrelling, it seems to me now--and then he--that is, we _both_ grew to
hate each other, and that of course ended everything. I really think,"
says Miss Blount, with suppressed passion, "I am the one girl in the
world he cordially dislikes and despises. He almost told me so
before--before we parted."

"Just like him, unmannerly beast!" says Mr. Gower, with deep disgust.

"It was just as well we found it all out in time," says Dulce, with a
short, but heavily-drawn sigh--probably, let us hope so, at least--one
of intense relief, "because he was really tiresome in most ways."

"I rather think so; I'm sure I wonder how you put up with him for so
long," says Gower, contemptuously.

"Force of habit, I suppose. He was always in the way when he wasn't
wanted. And--and--and the other thing," says Miss Blount, broadly, who
wants to say '_vice versa_,' but cannot remember it at this moment.

"Never knew when to hold his tongue," says Stephen, who is a rather
silent man; "never met such a beggar to talk."

"And so headstrong," says Dulce, pettishly.

"Altogether, I think he is about the greate