etimes jealous, Johnny boy, of
Alleghenia's place in your affections."

"You're the only person in the world who has no need to be," laughed
Barclay. "What is the news?"

"Probably," said Natalie, "the only interesting items are that you are
cold and a little cross, and that you want a big chair and a cup of tea
and some hot toast."

"Your summary of the situation is so exhaustive," said Barclay, "that
there seems to be nothing left for me to say, except that you are the
most beautiful girl in the world, and that I think I must stand still a
moment and just look at you, before I accept any of the luxuries you
suggest."

"I can't imagine how you know that I'm so beautiful. You can't possibly
see me in this dark corner. But I see I've made one mistake! You are
distinctly _not_ cross."

"Why should I be?" asked the Lieutenant-Governor, standing before the
table, with his long legs far apart, and rocking from his toes to his
heels and back again. "When a man has been walking for half an hour
through a gnawing February air, and suddenly, out of all proportion to
his deserts, comes full upon a rose in bloom, is that a reason for being
cross?"

She was very small, and deliciously delicate, was Natalie Rathbawne,
like a little Dresden image, with an arbutus-pink complexion, brown
hair, and deep-blue eyes, now clouded thoughtfully, but oftener alight
with humor, or dilating and clearing under the impetus of conversation.
A doll-like daintiness of tiny pleats and ruffles, fresh bows, and fine
stitching pervaded everything she wore, and if her voice inspired the
hackneyed comparison of running water, it was of water running under
moss, the sound whereof is as different from that of an open brook as is
music from discord. To John Barclay's thinking the barely believable
fact that this little miracle of beauty--this pocket-Venus, as he was
wont to call her--actually belonged to him remained one of the insoluble
mysteries of life. He could not, in the thraldom of his present Elysium,
be expected to remember, even if he had ever fully realized, that he
himself was tall, broad-shouldered, clean-cut, and clean-lived, with the
unmistakable stamp of the American gentleman on his linen and his
simple, well-fitting clothes, and the evidences of a sane, regular
existence in his steady hands and his clear eyes and his firm mouth,--a
man of whom any woman might be, and of whom this particular woman was,
extravagantly proud. For the fir