mined it by her candle. Griffith had engraved it with
these words:--

"I LOVE KATE."

He looked through the window, and saw her examine it by the candle. As
she read the inscription, her face, glorified by the light, assumed a
celestial tenderness he had never seen it wear before.

She came back and leaned eloquently out as if she would fly to him. "O
Griffith, Griffith!" she murmured, and somehow or other their lips met,
in spite of all the difficulties, and grew together in a long and tender
embrace.

It was the first time she had ever given him more than her hand to kiss,
and the rapture repaid him for all.

But as soon as she had made this great advance, virginal instinct
suggested a proportionate retreat.

"You must go to bed," she said, austerely; "you will catch your death of
cold out here."

He remonstrated: she insisted. He held out: she smiled sweetly in his
face, and shut the window in it pretty sharply, and disappeared. He went
disconsolately down his ivy ladder. As soon as he was at the bottom, she
opened the window again, and asked him, demurely, if he would do
something to oblige her.

He replied like a lover; he was ready to be cut in pieces, drawn asunder
with wild horses, and so on.

"O, I know you would do anything stupid for me," said she; "but will you
do something clever for a poor girl that is in a fright at what she is
going to do for you?"

"Give your orders, mistress," said Griffith, "and don't talk of me
obliging you. I feel quite ashamed to hear you talk so,--to-night
especially."

"Well, then," said Kate, "first and foremost, I want you to throw
yourself on Father Francis's neck."

"I'll throw myself on Father Francis's neck," said Griffith, stoutly.
"Is that all?"

"No, nor half. Once upon his neck you must say something. Then I had
better settle the very words, or perhaps you will make a mess of it. Say
after me now: O Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her."

"O Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her."

"You and I are friends for life."

"You and I are friends for life."

"And, mind, there is always a bed in our home for you, and a plate at
our table, and a right welcome, come when you will."

Griffith repeated this line correctly, but, when requested to say the
whole, broke down. Kate had to repeat the oration a dozen times; and he
said it after her, like a Sunday-school scholar, till he had it pat.

The task achieved, he inquired of her what Father Francis wa