s to-day and we promised her to come."

"Oh," said McAllen, "we need not start for ten minutes.... When will you
marry me?"

"In May," she said.

"_Good_ girl," said he.

"Billy," she said presently, "it was _all_ the first Mrs. Billy's
fault--wasn't it?"

"No, dear," said he, "it wasn't. It's never all of anybody's fault. Do
you care?"

"No."

"Are you afraid?"

"No."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

"So much," and she made the gesture that a baby makes when you ask, "How
big's the baby?"

"What's your name?"

"Dolly."

"Whose girl are you?"

"I'm Billy McAllen's girl."

"All of you?"

She grew very serious in a moment.

"All of me, Billy--all that is straight in me, all that is crooked, all
that is white, all that is black...."

But he would not be serious.

"How about this hand? Is that mine?"

"Yours."

He kissed it.

"This cheek?"

"Yours."

"And this?"

"Yours."

"These eyes?"

"Both yours."

He closed them, first one, then the other.

Then a kind of trembling seized him, so that it was evident in his
speech.

"This mouth, Dolly?"

"Mumm."

And so, as the romantic school has it, "the long day dragged slowly on."

David may have thought it pure chance that he should find Dolly Tennant
alone. But it was not. She had given the matter not a little strategy
and arrangement. Why, however, in view of her relations with McAllen,
she should have made herself as attractive as possible to the eye is for
other women to say.

It was to be April in a few days, and March was going out like a fiery
dragon. The long, broad shadow of the terrace awning helped to darken
the Tennants' drawing-room, and Venetian blinds, half-drawn, made a kind
of cool dusk, in which it came natural to speak in a lowered voice, and
to move quietly, as if some one were sick in the house. Miss Tennant sat
very low, with her hands clasped over her knees; a brocade and Irish
lace work-bag spilled its contents at her feet. She wore a twig of tea
olive in her dress so that the whole room smelled of ripe peaches. She
had never looked lovelier or more desirable.

"David!" she exclaimed. Her tone at once expressed delight at seeing
him, and was an apology for remaining languidly seated. And she looked
him over in a critical, maternal way.

"If you hadn't sent in your name," she said, "I should never have known
you. You stand taller and broader, David. You filled the door-way. But
you're not