en--she gave up the management of Harry's
Foreign Affairs to him, reserving to herself the control of the Home
Department, and, between the two, they ruled their vassal right royally.
After some months' acquaintance they became the greatest friends; on
Royston's side it was one of the few quite pure and unselfish feelings
he had ever cherished toward one of her sex not nearly akin to him in
blood. He always seemed to look on her as a very nice, but rather
spoiled child, to be humored and petted to any amount, but very seldom
to be reasoned with or gravely consulted. Considering her numerous
fascinations, and the little practice he had had in the paternal or
fraternal line, he really did it remarkably well: be it understood, it
was only _en petite comite_ that all this went on; in general society
his manner was strictly formal and deferential. It provoked her though,
sometimes, and one day she ventured to say, "I wish you would learn to
treat me like a grown-up woman!" Royston's eyes darkened strangely; and
one glance flashed out of the gloom that made her shrink away from him
then, and blush painfully when she thought of it afterward alone. He was
frowning, too, as he answered, in a voice unusually harsh and
constrained, "It seems to me we go on very well as it is. But women
never _will_ leave well alone." She did not like to analyze his answer
or her own feelings too closely, so she tried to persuade herself it was
a very rude speech, and that she ought to be offended at it. There was a
coolness between those two for some days, amounting to distant courtesy.
But the dignified style did not suit _ma mignonne_ (as Harry delighted
to call her) at all, and was, indeed, a lamentable failure; it made her
look as if she had been trying on one of her great-grandmother's
short-waisted dresses; so they soon fell back into their old ways, and,
like the model prince and princess, "lived very happily ever afterward."

CHAPTER II.

Keene had spent some time with the Molyneuxs during the autumn and
winter, and had conducted himself so far with perfect propriety,
certainly keeping Harry straighter than he would have gone alone; for he
was, unluckily, of a convivial turn of mind wholly incompatible with
delicate health and a frail constitution. Being a favorite with the
world in general, he felt bound, I suppose, to reciprocate, so, albeit
strictly enjoined to keep the earliest hours, he would sit up till dawn
if any one encou