ne to the touch and to gain hers--failed. Either the fates were
against him, or else she herself was in a willful mood. She had refused
to leave the dancing room with him on any pretext whatever, unless to
gain the coolness of the crowded hall outside, or the still more
inhabited supper room.

He was not dismayed, however, and there was no need to do things
precipitately. There was plenty of time. There could be no doubt about
the fact that she preferred him to any of the other men of her
acquaintance; he had discovered that she had refused Dysart not only
once, but twice. This he had drawn out of Isabel by a mild and
apparently meaningless but nevertheless incessant and abstruse
cross-examination. Naturally! He could see at once the reason for that.
No girl who had been once honored by his attentions could possibly give
her heart to another. No girl ever yet refused an honest offer unless
her mind was filled with the image of another fellow. Mr. Beauclerk
found no difficulty about placing "the other fellow" in this case.
Norman Beauclerk was his name! What woman in her senses would prefer
that tiresome Dysart with his "downright honesty" business so gloomily
developed, to him, Beauclerk? Answer? Not one.

Well, she shall be rewarded now, dear little girl! He will make her
happy for life by laying his name and prospective fortune at her feet.
To-day he will end his happy bachelor state and sacrifice himself on the
altar of love.

Thus resolved, he walks up through the lands of the Court, through the
valley filled with opening fronds of ferns, and through the spinney
beyond that again, until he comes to where the Monktons live. The house
seems very silent. Knocking at the door, the maid comes to tell him that
Mr. and Mrs. Monkton and the children are out, but that Miss Kavanagh is
within.

Happy circumstance! Surely the fates favor him. They always have, by the
by--sure sign that he is deserving of good luck.

Thanks. Miss Kavanagh, then. His compliments, and hopes that she is not
too fatigued to receive him.

The maid, having shown him into the drawing-room, retires with the
message, and presently the sound of little high-heeled shoes crossing
the hall tells him that Joyce is approaching. His heart beats high--not
immoderately high. To be uncertain is to be none the less unnerved--but
there is no uncertainty about his wooing. Still it pleases him to know
that in spite of her fatigue she could not bring herself to