ame to see
you!"

"Well, my dear, you can't expect people whose hearts are broken from
over-work, and whose hair is grey from want of love, to be as quick as
beautiful young ladies whose affairs have come to a happy head with a
splendid young knight;" and what I inwardly thought was, that at all
events I had discovered the knight's symptoms long before he had done
so.

"Would you like Mr Ernest and me to marry?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't object," I laconically replied.

"Well, I'll marry him as soon as ever he likes if I can get rid of
'Dora.' I'll see 'Dora' and see if I can do it without a rumpus first,
but if he hasn't got sense to be quiet, well, I won't give in without
a fight. Ernest mightn't like it if he knew, but I bet he will have to
keep dark about worse things on his part if I only knew,--he's
different to ninety-nine per cent of men if he hasn't," she said as
she opened the French lights wider to the crisp breath of scented
night and blew out the lamp.

"You don't mind his hair being red now, do you?" I maliciously
inquired in the darkness, and though she feigned sleep I knew that
owing to a delightful wakefulness another beside myself heard the
splendid music of the trains that night. The style of her breathing
told that she was still awake some hours later when the old moon
climbed high and came shining, shining down the valley, divided in two
by its noble river, and laid out in orchard and agricultural squares.
The great silver light outlined the glorious hills that walled the
west away from the little towns and villages, and here and there a
gleaming white cluster of tombstones bespoke the graveyards where
slept the early pioneers and the folk who had followed them, and which
one by one, as opening buds or withered stalks, were settling their
last earthly score. The little homesteads lay royally, peacefully free
from danger of molestation amid their wealth of trees and vines.
Cottages raised on piles, and vain in the distinction of small
protruding gables, pretentiously called bay windows, and with keys
rusting for want of use in the cheap patent door-locks, were quickly
superseding the earlier dwellings. These squat old cots generally had
thresholds higher than the floors; their home-made slab doors knew no
fastening but a latch with a string unfailingly on the outside day and
night, and with their beetling verandahs and tiny box skillions, were
crouchingly hard set upon the genial plain.