gue me, will you?"

"No, indeed! I'm delighted to have all your pretty things. I saw them
once, you know, when you gave your mother her birth-night party;" and they
began their round of inspection. "But, Harry, you've refurnished the whole
suite!"

"You didn't think I was going to make you and Norval (I can't call you
Cousin Ross yet, old fellow--I hate you too bad, you know) cast your lines
among my smoke-and-wine-scented traps, did you?"

As she saw how exquisitely he had chosen everything, how delicately he had
regarded every one of her tastes in his selection, and thought how little
reason he had to be good to her, she turned quickly and put her arms about
him. With a shuddering sob he held his own out as if to clasp her, saying,
"May I, Ross?" The answering nod was scarcely given ere he had gathered
her to his breast, murmuring, "Percy! Percy! my lost darling!"

As he held her thus, she said softly, "Promise me, Harry--dear old
Hal--promise me this!"

"Anything, everything, Percy," he said.

"That you will give up Africa and go to Heidelberg."

"I will, I will, since you wish it."

She drew his face down and kissed him on his mouth, two long, sweet
kisses, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, cousin!"

He stood like a blind man as she gently drew herself from his embrace,
then wringing Ross's hand in a grasp that made him wince, he strode out of
the house without a word.

Percy, going to where her husband sat, said humbly, "I was so sorry for
him, I could not help it. You do not care--very much?"

"Harry Barton loved you and wanted to marry you?"

"Yes, Ross. I've been very unhappy about it for years, he's wasted his
life so, and angered his family. Indeed, it was not my fault: I never gave
him reason."

"Yet you married me without a pretence of love, and he's richer and
handsomer and a better man than I, every way? I don't understand it,
child."

"Yes, I married you, knowing you did not love me." His arms almost crushed
her at that truth. "He may be richer: he is no better, I think,
and"--holding his face between her hands with a quizzical survey for an
instant--"it's barefaced scandal to assert that he is as handsome, by one
half. Poor, handsome Ross, to think that all your manifold charms should
have purchased you only ugly little me!" and she laughed a merry, mocking
laugh at his protesting hug. "It's true, though--it's the very climax of
opposites, a perfection of contrasts." Then, her light