blacks on my nose?"
Although she had distinctly refused him at Kalsing, as became a girl
destitute of vanity and coquetry and attached to some one else, she had
not found him the less fluent, omnipresent, persuasive, at Niagara. It
was diverting to see them seated side by side on Goat Island, he waving
his hand toward the blue sky, apostrophizing the water, the foliage, the
clouds, and what not, in prose and verse, quite content if he but got a
quiet glance and assenting word now and then, she listening demurely in
a state of protestant satisfaction, her fair hair very dazzling in the
sunshine, an unvarying apple-blossom tint in her calm face, her fingers
tatting industriously not to waste the time outright. It was very
agreeable in a way, she told herself, but something must really be done
to get rid of the man. And so, one morning when they chanced to be
alone, and he was being unusually ethereal and beautiful in his remarks,
telling her that, as Byron had said, she would be "the morning star of
memory" for him, she broke in squarely, "That is all very nice; very
pretty, I am sure. But I do hope you quite understand that I have not
the least idea of marrying you. There is no use in going on like this,
you know, and you would have a right to reproach me if I kept silent and
led you to think that I was being won over by your fine speeches. You
see, you don't really want a star at all. You want a wife; though
military men, as a rule, are better off single. I do thank you heartily
for liking me for myself, and all that, and I shall always remember the
kind things you have done, and our acquaintance, but you must put me
quite out of your head as a wife. I should not suit you at all. You
would have to leave the American service, and I should hate feeling I
had tied you down, and I couldn't contribute a penny toward the
household expenses, and, altogether, we are much better apart. It would
not answer at all. So, thank you again for the honor you have conferred
upon me, and be--be rather more--like other people, won't you, for the
future? Auntie fancies that I am encouraging you, and is getting very
vexed about it. Perhaps you had better go away? Yes, that would be best,
I think."

Thus solicited, Captain Kendall went away, taking a mournfully-eloquent
farewell of Ethel, which she thought final; but in this she was
mistaken.

Our party did not linger long after this. Sir Robert met a titled
acquaintance, who inflamed his m