you; and to a world
you have found heartless and false you have not cared to lift the domino
and mask you wore."

Vaughan sighed from the bottom of his heart, and walked on in silence
for a good five minutes. "Promise me, Nina," he said at length with an
effort, "that no matter what you hear against me, you will not condemn
me unheard."

"I promise," she answered, raising her eyes to his, brighter still for
the color in her checks. It was the first time he had called her Nina.

"Miss Gordon," said Eusebius, hurriedly overtaking them, "pray come with
me a moment: there is the most exquisite specimen of the Flamboyant
style in an archway----"

"Thank you for your good intentions," said Nina, pettishly, "but really,
as you might know by this time, I never can see any attractions in your
prosaic and matter-of-fact-fact study."

"It might be more profitable than----"

"Than thinking of La Valliere and poor Bragelonne, and all the gay
glories of the exiled Bourbons?" laughed Nina. "Very likely; but romance
is more to my taste than granite. You would never have killed yourself,
like Bragelonne, for the beaux yeux of Louise de la Beaume-sur-Blanc,
would you?"

"I trust," said Eusebius, stiffly, "that I should have had a deeper
sense of the important responsibilities of the gift of life than to
throw it away because a silly girl preferred another."

"You are very impolitic," said Ernest, with a satirical smile. "No lady
could feel remorse at forsaking you, if you could get over it so
easily."

"He _would_ get over it easily," laughed Nina. "You would call her
Delilah, and all the Scripture bad names, order Mr. Ruskin's new work,
turn your desires to a deanship, marry some bishop's daughter with high
ecclesiastical interest, and console yourself in the bosom of your
Mother Church--eh, Mr. Ruskinstone?"

"You are cruelly unjust," sighed Eusebius. "You little know----"

"The charms of architecture? No; and I never shall," answered his
tormentor, humming the "Queen of the Roses," and waltzing down the
forest glade, where they were walking. "How severe you look!" she said
as she waltzed back. "Is _that_ wrong, too? Miriam danced before the ark
and Jephtha's daughter."

The Warden appeared not to hear. Certainly his mode of courtship was
singular.

"Ernest," he said, turning to his cousin as the rest of the party came
up, "I had no idea your sister was in Paris. I have not seen her since
she was fourteen. I should no