us,--"I mean what you've made lots of young fellows
feel. There used to be a picture of Colonel Brigg on the mantelpiece, in
full uniform, and signed by himself 'for Kitty;' and Lord! how jealous I
was of it, for Kitty never took presents from gentlemen, and nobody even
was allowed in here, though she helped her father all over the
hotel. She was awfully strict in those days," he interpolated, with
a thoughtful look and a half-sigh; "but then she wasn't married. I
proposed to her in this very room! Lord! I remember how frightened I
was." He stopped for an instant, and then said with a certain timidity,
"Do you mind my telling you something about it?"

Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear these ingenuous domestic
details, but she smiled vaguely, although she could not suppress a
somewhat impatient movement with her hands. Even Barker noticed it, but
to her surprise moved a little nearer to her, and in a half-entreating
way said, "I hope I don't bore you, but it's something confidential. Do
you know that she first REFUSED me?"

Mrs. Horncastle smiled, but could not resist a slight toss of her head.
"I believe they all do when they are sure of a man."

"No!" said Barker eagerly, "you don't understand. I proposed to her
because I thought I was rich. In a foolish moment I thought I had
discovered that some old stocks I had had acquired a fabulous value. She
believed it, too, but because she thought I was now a rich man and she
only a poor girl--a mere servant to her father's guests--she refused me.
Refused me because she thought I might regret it in the future, because
she would not have it said that she had taken advantage of my proposal
only when I was rich enough to make it."

"Well?" said Mrs. Horncastle incredulously, gazing straight before her;
"and then?"

"In about an hour I discovered my error, that my stocks were worthless,
that I was still a poor man. I thought it only honest to return to her
and tell her, even though I had no hope. And then she pitied me, and
cried, and accepted me. I tell it to you as her friend." He drew a
little nearer and quite fraternally laid his hand upon her own. "I know
you won't betray me, though you may think it wrong for me to have told
it; but I wanted you to know how good she was and true."

For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was amazed and discomfited, although she
saw, with the inscrutable instinct of her sex, no inconsistency between
the Kitty of those days and the Kitty n