"Yes; Ernest told me."

"Well, I'll tell you about it one day." I did not mention that I had
expressly requested Ernest to keep my past a secret. However, I was
not displeased that he had been unable to do so. If a man of his
inexperience, and in the zenith of his first overwhelming passion, had
been able to keep such a secret in the teeth of his love's wheedling,
he would have proved himself of the stuff to make an ambassadorial
diplomat, but not of the calibre to be the affectionate, domesticated
husband, having no interests of which his wife might not be
cognisant--the only character to whom I could without misgiving
entrust the hot-headed Dawn.

TWENTY-EIGHT.

LET THERE BE LOVE.

I so nearly "pegged out" with an attack that fell to my lot a little
time after the election, that Dr Smalley considered it advisable to
summon Dr Tinker to a consultation, but sad to say I was too comatose
to have become acquainted with the husband of the famous Mrs Tinker,
whose individuality afforded considerable interest, because it was
very conspicuous when surrounded by the neutrality of life in Noonoon.
However, with the aid of some "powltices" constructed by Grandma Clay
and energetically applied by Mrs Bray, and because my hour had not yet
come, against the time when we slid into a splendid October I was
tottering about once more.

During my time of confinement the old valley had put on its finishing
touches of spring glory. Only a few golden oranges now remained on the
trees, and amid the bright green leaves were thick clusters of waxy
bloom. The perfume from them was heavenly, and sometimes almost too
powerful after the sun had toppled behind the great level-browed range
which, viewed from the plain, guarded the west of the valley of
Noonoon like a mighty wall. Some of the land had been cultivated for a
century without attention to artificial renewal of its fertility, but
still it gave forth a wondrous variety and wealth of vegetation. The
widespreading cedars hung out their scented bloom like heliotrope
flags amid surrounding greenery of pine, plane, poplar, and loquat,
and the peach and apricot orchards contributed banks of their delicate
flowers, which in the glory of their massed bloom could have
out-Japanned Japan. Along the lanes, where their stones had been
thrown, they sprang up and bloomed and bore liberally; roses of many
kinds and colours clambered up verandah posts and peeped over fences;
the garden pl