rta!"

Ruperta made no reply, but, being now at Highmore, she put out her hand
to him, and turned her head away. He kissed her hand devotedly, and so
they parted.

Compton told Lady Bassett all that happened, and Ruperta told Mrs.
Bassett.

Those ladies readily promised to be on the side of peace, but they
feared it could only be the work of time, and said so.

By-and-by Compton got impatient, and told Ruperta he had thought of a
way to compel their fathers to be friends. "I am afraid you won't like
the idea at _first,"_ said he; "but the more you think of it, the more
you will see it is the surest way of all."

"Well, but what is it?"

"You must let me marry you."

Ruperta stared, and began to blush crimson.

"Will you, cousin?"

"Of course not, child. The idea!"

"Oh, Ruperta," cried the boy in dismay, "surely you don't mean to marry
anybody else but me!"

"Would that make you very unhappy, then?"

"You know it would, wretched for my life."

"I should not like to do that. But I disapprove of early marriages. I
mean to wait till I'm nineteen; and that is three years nearly."

"It is a fearful time; but if you will promise not to marry anybody
else, I suppose I shall live through it."

Ruperta, though she made light of Compton's offer, was very proud of it
(it was her first). She told her mother directly.

Mrs. Bassett sighed, and said that was too blessed a thing ever to
happen.

"Why not?" said Ruperta.

"How could it," said Mrs. Bassett, "with everybody against it but poor
little me!"

"Compton assures me that Lady Bassett wishes it."

"Indeed! But Sir Charles and papa, Ruperta?"

"Oh, Compton must talk Sir Charles over, and I will persuade papa. I'll
begin this evening, when he comes home from London."

Accordingly, as he was sitting alone in the dining-room sipping his
glass of port, Ruperta slipped away from her mother's side and found
him.

His face brightened at the sight of her; for he was extremely fond and
proud of this girl, for whom he would not have the bells rung when she
was born.

She came and hung round his neck a little, and kissed him, and said
softly, "Dear papa, I have something to tell you. I have had a
proposal."

Richard Bassett stared.

"What, of marriage?"

Ruperta nodded archly.

"To a child like you? Scandalous! No, for, after all, you look nineteen
or twenty. And who is the highwayman that thinks to rob me of my
precious girl?"

"Well, papa, whoeve