pted brother."

Brother again! Blow after blow; let them fall now, one upon another. I
had feared this, yet would not expect it. But I suppose I must
unwittingly have been born a brother.

"That's right," said I. "Go on--little sister." The words were getting
quite familiar now.

"He says that he has never stopped loving
me--dreadfully--desperately--from the very first. But I was _so_ sure it
was only a fancy, and--and that when I was so bad to him, and Phyllis so
kind, he began to care for her instead. Just now, when you said I must
pretend to be engaged to him, I was thinking how horrid it would be for
him to feel, 'Oh, if it were only Phyllis!' Didn't you suppose he was in
love with Phyllis?"

"Never," I heard myself assuring her; "never."

"I'm _so_ glad. You're sure, then, that he knows his own mind, that he
isn't asking me to go on being really engaged to him just to save my
feelings after that scene with Sir Alec MacNairne?"

"I'm _dead_ sure," I said.

"You perfect dear! I _do_ like you. Oh, wasn't it too funny--I can say
it, now we're brother and sister--he thought I might be in love with
_you_."

"Owl!" I remarked.

"And all the time I was so horribly afraid he might suspect I cared
that I would hardly speak a word to him. Besides, I didn't suppose he
could be bothered listening to anything _I_ might have to say. And I
felt quite _sorry_ for him when Phyllis was engaged to Robert. Dear
Phil, I've been horrid to her, too. You see, she was trying to persuade
herself to take Rudolph without loving him, and I just _hated_ her for
it."

"Oh, that was what you meant, then!" I exclaimed.

"What I meant?"

"It doesn't matter. Well, make your mind easy, sweet sister. Alb adores
you--has adored you since the first moment he set eyes on you, and will
till he closes them in death. That's my conviction as his lifetime
friend. And my advice is, go on being engaged to him until you marry
him."

"Mariner, what an old trump you are!" broke in Brederode. And there he
was behind me, neat as a pin, in his own suit of clothes, and radiant in
his new suit of happiness.

"I give her to you, Alb," said I. And then I strolled away again,
humming to the air of the Dead March, in Saul, or something equivalent,
those haunting words--

_Giving agreeable girls away----
One for you, and one for you, but never, never one for me!_

XXXVII

I felt, when I waked up on the morning of butter-market-day at
M