ast beef."

"So it was. Better than cheese, any day. How stupid of me! I might have
known an emerald--I mean a pig--wouldn't like cheese."

"I don't suppose it would like roast beef a bit better," says Monica;
and then her lips part and she bursts into a merry laugh at the
absurdity of the thing. She is such a child still that she finds the
keenest enjoyment in it.

"Never mind," with dignity, "and permit me to tell you, Miss Beresford,
that open ridicule is rude. To continue: _this_ little pearl got none,
and this little plain gold ring got--he got--what on earth did the
little plain gold pig--I mean, ring--get?"

"_Nothing._ Just what _you_ ought to get for such a badly-told story. He
only cried, 'Wee.'"

"Oh, no, indeed. He shan't cry at all. I won't have tears connected with
you in any way."

She glances up at him with eyes half shy, half pleased, and with the
prettiest dawning smile upon her lips.

He clasps the slender fingers closer, as though loath to part with them,
and yet his tale has come to a climax.

"If I have told my story so badly, perhaps I had better tell it all over
again," he says, with a base assumption of virtuous regret.

"No. I would not give you that trouble for the world," she says,
mischievously, and then the dawning smile widens, brightens into
something indescribable, but perfect.

"Oh, Monica, I do think you are the sweetest thing on earth," says the
young man, with sudden fervid passion; and then all at once, and for the
first time, he puts out his arms impulsively and draws her to him. She
colors,--still smiling, however,--and after a brief hesitation, moves
slowly but decidedly back from him.

"You don't _hate_ me to touch you, do you?" asks he, rather hurt.

"Oh, no, indeed!" hurriedly. "Only----"

"Only what, darling?"

"I hardly know what," she answers, looking bewildered. "Perhaps because
it is all so strange. Why should you love _me_ better than any one?--and
yet you do," anxiously, "don't you?"

The innocently-expressed anxiety makes his heart glad.

"I adore you," he says, fervently; and then, "Did no one ever place his
arm round you _before_, Monica?"

He finds a difficulty in even asking this.

"No, no," with intense surprise at the question, and a soft, quick
glance that is almost shamed. "I never had a lover in my life until I
met you. No one except you ever told me I was pretty. The first time
_you_ said it I went home (when I was out of your sight," r