stamping her little foot, her blue eyes blazing angrily.

"Are you so very displeased?" he inquired, reproachfully, adding
quietly: "If that is the case, I beg your pardon. I shall never so
trespass again;" and he dropped her hand and turned away, walking
moodily to the window.

"Gracious! I have done it now!" thought Dorothy, repenting on the
instant; and, as he made no effort to turn around or speak to her
again, she advanced slowly to where he stood idly drumming upon the
window-sill.

"I wasn't so very angry," she began, hesitatingly, picking nervously at
the blue ribbons which tied her long, curling hair. "I said I wasn't so
very angry!" repeated Dorothy, nervously. He heard her, but never turned
his head, and Dorothy was at a loss what to say next to mend matters.
"Would you like a rose?" she stammered.

"Thanks--no!" replied Kendal, shortly, still without turning his head.
Then, after a brief pause:

"Or would you like me to show you a new book of poems I just bought?"

"You needn't mind. Pray don't trouble yourself," he responded.

Dorothy looked at him an instant, quite as though she was ready to cry;
then the best thing that could have happened, under the circumstances,
came to her relief.

She grew angry.

"I wouldn't show you the book now, to save your life!" she cried, her
breath coming and going in panting gasps, and her cheeks flaming as
scarlet as the deep-red rose she had brought him as a peace-offering;
"nor would I give you this flower. I'd tear it up and stamp it beneath
my feet first--you are so mean!"

He turned with a very tantalizing smile, and looked at her out of the
corners of his eyes.

She had hidden her face in her hands, but by the panting of her breast
he saw that she was weeping, that a storm of sobs was shaking her
childish frame.

He stooped and passed his arm lightly around the slim waist, his hand
holding hers.

Dorothy trembled.

"Won't you let me comfort you?" he asked, in that low, winning voice of
his.

The thought flashed across Dorothy's brain that, if she pushed him from
her, he would never again put his arms about her, and she meekly endured
the caress for an instant; and not being repulsed, he grew bold enough
to kiss the rosy cheek that peeped out from between the white fingers.

"I have something to say to you, Dorothy," he whispered. "It is this: I
love you! Will you be my wife?"

Dorothy had always imagined just how a lover should propose, but she