lder feeling
unutterably happy.

'Why have you been running away from me all the evening?' he asks, when
a perfect understanding has been made between them.

'I didn't,' she says indignantly, 'it was you who never came near me.'

A kiss is the answer to this, and then tenderly, 'But what were you
crying about just now?'

'I was frightened rather--'

'What at, darling?' asks Jimmy, gazing down at the blushing face, which
is being rubbed up and down against his coat sleeve.

'At--at what I'd done,' stammers Lippa.

'Something very dreadful, no doubt,' says he with a look that belies his
words.

'Yes, you're quite right,' Miss Seaton answers, 'it _was_ dreadful. I
can't think how I did it, shall I have to beg his pardon?'

'His! whose?' asks Jimmy quickly.

'Captain Harkness,' is the whispered reply, while she digs a hole in the
gravel path with the heel of her white satin shoe. 'I boxed him on the
ear, I hardly knew what I was doing at the moment, and now I can't think
how I could do it--you see he'd asked me to marry him.'

'Is that the usual way you refuse your suitors?' says Jimmy laughing.
'What a mercy I had not to suffer the same fate.'

'Now if I remember rightly,' replies Miss Seaton gravely, 'you haven't
asked me to marry you.'

'What have I done then?' asks Dalrymple.

'You've told me you loved me, but that isn't a bit the same, you know.'

'No, of course not, but, dearest, you _will_ marry me?'

'Silly boy,' is the reply, while she suddenly reaches up and kisses him,
and then disengaging herself from his detaining arm hurries back to the
house, whither he follows her a little more slowly.

CHAPTER VI

''Tis true, 'tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true.'--HAMLET

It is breakfast time, but at present nobody has put in an
appearance; whoever is punctual the morning after a ball! The
drawing-room looks dreadful, all empty and bare, and the candles burnt
down in their sockets. 'Ugh!' Lippa shudders as she pokes her head in,
just to have a look at the place where Jimmy bade her goodnight. She
does even more, for she goes and lays her head against a place on the
wall, where she remembers he leant against, and as she does so a happy
contented smile hovers round her mouth, and then laughing at herself,
she hurries to the dining-room.

'What, no one down yet!' she exclaims, gazing round the empty room.

'Yes; I am,' replies a voice from outside, and Paul appears at the open
wi