" being his way of bargaining. In the afternoon he carried them down
to Sloane Street.

"Here, Nina, I've brought you a little present; and I'll have to show
you how to use it, or you would never guess what it is for."

When he unrolled his pretty gift out of the pink tissue paper, Nina
threw up her hands in despair.

"Oh, it is too much of a folly!" she exclaimed. "Why do you do it, Leo?
What is the use of old silver to me?"

"Well, it's nice to look at," said he. "And it will help to furnish your
house when you get married, Nina."

"Ah, Leo," said she, "if you would only think about yourself! It is
always to-day, to-morrow, with you: never the coming years--"

"Yes, I know all about that," he interposed. "Now I'm going to show you
how these are used. They're loving-cups, you know, Nina--"

"Loving-cups?" she repeated, rather timidly.

"Yes? and I will show you how the ceremony is performed. Now, will you
get me some lemonade, Nina, and a little of the vermouth that I sent to
Mrs. Grey?"

She went and got these things for him; and when she returned he poured
into one of the tiny goblets about a teaspoonful of the vermouth,
filling it up with the lemonade; then he put the other cup on the top of
this one, so that they formed a continuous vessel; he shook the
contents; then he separated the cups, leaving about half the liquid in
each, and one of them he handed to Nina, retaining the other.

"We drink at the same time, Nina--with any kind of wishes you like."

She glanced towards him--and then shyly lowered her eyes--as she raised
the small cup to her lips. What were her wishes? Perhaps he did not care
to know; perhaps she would not have cared to tell.

"You see, it is a simple ceremony, Nina," he said, as he put the little
goblet on the table again. "But at the same time it is very
confidential. I mean, you wouldn't ask everybody to go through it with
you--it would hardly, for example, be quite circumspect for you to ask
any young man you didn't know very well--"

"Leo!"

The sound of her voice startled him; there were tears of indignation in
it; he looked up and found she had grown suddenly pale.

"You," she said, with quivering lips, "you and I, Leo--we have drunk
together out of these--and you think I allow any one else--any one
living in the world--to drink out of them after that?--I would rather
have them dashed to pieces and thrown into the sea!"

Her vehemence surprised him--and might have set a