a
fonder recognition of her sweetheart's worth when he lays a
love-offering at her feet.

Joyce, after her one act of devotion to her sweetheart, runs down the
garden path and toward the summer house. She is not expecting Dysart
until the day has well grown into its afternoon; but, book in hand, she
has escaped from all possible visitors to spend a quiet hour in the old
earwiggy shanty at the end of the garden, sure of finding herself safe
there from interruptions.

The sequel proves the futility of all human belief.

Inside the summer house; book in hand likewise, sits Mr. Browne, a
picture of studious virtue.

Miss Kavanagh, seeing him, stops dead short, so great is her surprise,
and Mr. Browne, raising his eyes, as if with difficulty, from the book
on his knee, surveys her with a calmly judicial eye.

"Not here. Not here, my child," quotes he, incorrectly. "You had better
try next door."

"Try for what?" demands she, indignantly.

"For whom? You mean----"

"No, I don't," with increasing anger.

"Jocelyne!" says Mr. Browne, severely. "When one forsakes the path of
truth it is only to tread in----"

"Nonsense!" says Miss Kavanagh, irreverently.

"As you will!" says he, meekly. "But I assure you he is not here."

"I could have told you that," says she, coloring, however, very warmly.
"I must say, Dicky, you are the most ingeniously stupid person I ever
met in my life."

"To shine in even the smallest line in life is to achieve something,"
says Mr. Browne, complacently. "And so you knew he wouldn't be here just
now?"

This is uttered in an insinuating tone. Miss Kavanagh feels she has made
a false move. To give Dicky an inch is, indeed, to give him an ell.

"He? Who?" says she, weakly.

"Don't descend to dissimulation, Jocelyne," advises he, severely. "It's
the surest road to ruin, if one is to believe the good old copy books.
By he--you see I scorn subterfuge--I mean Dysart, the person to whom in
a mistaken moment you have affianced yourself, as though I--I were not
ready at any time to espouse you."

"I'm not going to be espoused," says Miss Kavanagh, half laughing.

"No? I quite understood----"

"I won't have that word," petulantly. "It sounds like something out of
the dark ages."

"So does he," says Mr. Browne. "'Felix,' you know. So Latin! Quite like
one of the old monks. I shouldn't wonder if he turned out a----"

"I wish you wouldn't tease me, Dicky," says she. "You think you are
amusi