orded and very badly written."

"I don't know that," begins Molly, warmly; and then she stops short,
and they both laugh. "And you, Cecil--what of you? Am I mistaken in
thinking you and Sir Penthony are--are----"

"Yes, we are," says Cecil, smiling and coloring brilliantly. "As you so
graphically express it, we actually--_are_. At present, like you,
we are formally engaged."

"Really?"--delighted. "I always knew you loved him. And so you have
given in at last?"

"Through sheer exhaustion, and merely with a view to stop further
persecution. When a man comes to you day after day, asking you whether
you love him yet, ten to one you say yes in the end, whether it be the
truth or not. We all know what patience and perseverance can do. But I
desire you, Molly, never to lose sight of the fact that I am consenting
to be his only to escape his importunities."

"I quite understand. But, dear Cecil, I am so rejoiced."

"Are you, dear?"--provokingly. "And why?--I thought to have a second
marriage, if only for the appearance of the thing; but it seems I
cannot. So we are going to Kamtschatka, or Bath, or Timbuctoo, or
Hong-Kong, or Halifax, for our wedding tour, I really don't know which,
and I would not presume to dictate. That is, if I do not change my mind
between that and this."

"And when is that?"

"The seventeenth of next month. He wanted to make it the first of
April; but I said I was committing folly enough without reminding all
the world of it. So he succumbed. I wish, Molly, you could be married
on the same day."

"What am I to do with a lover who refuses to take me?" says Molly, with
a rueful laugh. "I dare say I shall be an old maid after all."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"Why shouldn't I love my love?
Why shouldn't he love me?
Why shouldn't I love my love,
Since love to all is free?"

Three full weeks that, so far as Molly is concerned, have been
terribly, wearisomely long, have dragged to their close. Not that they
have been spent in idleness; much business has been transacted, many
plans fulfilled; but they have been barren of news of her lover.

"In the spring a young man's fancies lightly turn to thoughts of love;"
but his thoughts seem far removed from such tender dalliance.

She knows, through Cecil, of his being in Ireland with his regiment for
the first two of those interminable weeks, and of his appearance in
London during the third, where he was seeking an exchange into some
regiment or