And you would really wish me to marry that girl?"

"I do,--if you can love her."

"And what about her love?"

"You must win it, of course. She is to be won, like any other woman.
The fruit won't fall into your mouth merely because you open your
lips. You must climb the tree."

"Still climbing trees in the Hesperides," said Conway. "Love does
that, you know; but it is hard to climb the trees without the love.
It seems to me that I have done my climbing,--have clomb as high as
I knew how, and that the boughs are breaking with me, and that I am
likely to get a fall. Do you understand me?"

"I would rather not understand you."

"That is no answer to my question. Do you understand that at this
moment I am getting a fall which will break every bone in my skin and
put any other climbing out of the question as far as I am concerned?
Do you understand that?"

"No; I do not," said Mrs. Broughton, in a tremulous voice.

"Then I'll go and make love at once to Clara Van Siever. There's
enough of pluck left in me to ask her to marry me, and I suppose I
could manage to go through the ceremony if she accepted me."

"But I want you to love her," said Mrs. Dobbs Broughton.

"I daresay I should love her well enough after a bit;--that is, if
she didn't break my head or comb my hair. I suppose there will be no
objection to my saying that you sent me when I ask her?"

"Conway, you will of course not mention my name to her. I have
suggested to you a marriage which I think would tend to make you
happy, and would give you a stability in life which you want. It is
perhaps better that I should be explicit at once. As an unmarried man
I cannot continue to know you. You have said words of late which have
driven me to this conclusion. I have thought about it much,--too much
perhaps, and I know that I am right. Miss Van Siever has beauty and
wealth and intellect, and I think that she would appreciate the love
of such a man as you are. Now go." And Mrs. Dobbs Broughton, standing
upright, pointed to the door. Conway Dalrymple slowly took his
Spanish hat from off the marble slab on which he had laid it, and
left the room without saying a word. The interview had been quite
long enough, and there was nothing else which he knew how to say with
effect.

Croquet is a pretty game out of doors, and chess is delightful in a
drawing-room. Battledore and shuttlecock and hunt-the-slipper have
also their attractions. Proverbs are good, and cross ques