inly under less control
than it was an hour ago, and is glinting and changing from auburn to
brown, and from brown to a warm yellow, beneath the sad kisses of the
Wintry sun. One or two riotous locks have escaped from under her
otter-skin cap and are straying lovingly across her fair forehead,
suggesting an idea of coquetry in the sweet eyes below shaded by their
long dark lashes.

"Your eyes are stars of morning,
Your lips are crimson flowers,"

says Roger softly, as they still stand hand in hand. He is looking at
her intently, with a new meaning in his glance as he says this.

"What a pretty song that is!" says Miss Blount, carelessly. "I like it
better almost every time I hear it."

"It was you made me think of it now," says Roger; and then they seat
themselves upon a huge stone near the brink, that looks as if it was put
there on purpose for them.

"Where is Gower?" asks Roger, at length, somewhat abruptly.

"Yes--where?" returns she, in a tone suggestive of the idea that now for
the first time she had missed him. She says it quite naturally and
without changing color. The fact is it really _is_ the first time she
has thought of him to-day, but I regret to say Roger firmly believes she
is acting, and that she is doing it uncommonly well.

"He hasn't been at the Court since yesterday--has he?" he asks, somewhat
impatiently.

"N--o. But I dare say he will turn up by-and-by. Why?" with a quick
glance at him from under her heavy lashes. "Do you want him?"

"Certainly not. _I_ don't want him," said Roger, with exceeding emphasis
upon the pronoun.

"Then I don't know anybody else who does," finishes Dulce, biting her
lips.

"She is regularly piqued because the fellow hasn't turned up--a lover's
quarrel, I suppose," says Mr. Dare, savagely, to himself, reading
wrongly that petulant movement of her lips.

"YOU do!" he says. To be just to him, he is, and always, I think, will
be, a terribly outspoken young man.

"_I_ do?"

"Yes; you looked decidedly cut up just now when I spoke of his not being
here since yesterday."

"You are absurdly mistaken," declares Miss Blount, with dignity. "It is
a matter of the most perfect indifference to me whether he comes or
goes." (Oh, if he could only know how true this is!)

"Even more piqued than I supposed," concludes Roger, inwardly.

"However, I have no doubt we shall see him this evening," goes on Dulce,
calmly.

"_That_ will be a comfort to