ays: "she told me to
bring her in a lily, fresh with dew,--one of those lilies over there in
that dark corner. Do you see them,--tall and white?"

"I see. Let me pick one for her. Here, take it to her, and," laying his
lips upon it, "_this_ with it."

"I will. And now let me run in and try my utmost to persuade her to come
out here. But," doubtfully, as she remembers how Monica refused with
studied coldness to meet his parting glance at the Barracks a few hours
ago, "do not be too sure of her coming. She _may_ refuse, you know. She
is peculiar in many ways, and she thinks herself bound in honor to Aunt
Priscilla not to look at you. But stay here, just in this spot, and
think all the time that I am doing my very best for you."

Her little face is so earnest as she says all this, so fearful that he
may have to endure disappointment, that he is greatly touched. Pushing
back her hair from her forehead with both hands, he lays a light but
loving kiss upon her brow.

"Go, my best friend. I trust all to you," he says, after which the
slender sprite springs away from him, and, entering the shadows beyond,
is soon lost to him.

Reaching the house, she mounts the stairs with swift but silent
footsteps, and, after a nervous hesitation before the door of her aunt
Priscilla's room, finds herself once again face to face with Monica.

That pretty cause of all this plotting is not in bed, as Kit had
predicted might be the case. She is not even undressed. She has only
exchanged her azure gown for a loose white morning robe, long and
trailing, and lavishly trimmed at the throat and wrists with some rare
old Mechlin lace that Aunt Penelope had given her a week ago, glad in
the thought that it may perchance add another charm to the beauty of her
darling.

Her hair is rolled up in a small, soft knot behind; her face is a little
pale; her eyes, large and luminous, have great heavy shadows lying
beneath them, suggestive of fatigue and tiring thought. Altogether, she
is looking as lovely as any heart can desire.

"Ah, you have returned!" she says, as Kit enters. "How long you have
been! I gave you up. I thought some pixy had become enamoured of you and
had carried you off to his kingdom."

"I was in danger of nothing so insignificant as a pixy. It was the great
Apollo's self I feared," says Kit, with a sly humorous smile. "And here
is your lily: _he_ sent it to you with his love and a kiss."

"Apollo?" smiling.

"Why, yes. Who el