ce you yourself advise me, I will. Miss Lammas, will you do me the
honor to marry me?"

For the first time in my life the blood rushed to my head and my sight
swam. I cannot tell why I said it. It would be useless to try to
explain the extraordinary fascination the girl exercised over me, or
the still more extraordinary feeling of intimacy with her which had
grown in me during that half-hour. Lonely, sad, unlucky as I had been
all my life, I was certainly not timid, nor even shy. But to propose
to marry a woman after half an hour's acquaintance was a piece of
madness of which I never believed myself capable, and of which I should
never be capable again, could I be placed in the same situation. It
was as though my whole being had been changed in a moment by magic--by
the white magic of her nature brought into contact with mine. The
blood sank back to my heart, and a moment later I found myself staring
at her with anxious eyes. To my amazement she was as calm as ever, but
her beautiful mouth smiled, and there was a mischievous light in her
dark-brown eyes.

"Fairly caught," she answered. "For an individual who pretends to be
listless and sad you are not lacking in humor. I had really not the
least idea what you were going to say. Wouldn't it be singularly
awkward for you if I had said 'Yes'? I never saw anybody begin to
practise so sharply what was preached to him--with so very little loss
of time!"

"You probably never met a man who had dreamed of you for seven months
before being introduced."

"No, I never did," she answered gaily. "It smacks of the romantic.
Perhaps you are a romantic character, after all. I should think you
were if I believed you. Very well; you have taken my advice, entered
for a Stranger's Race and lost it. Try the All-aged Trial Stakes. You
have another cuff, and a pencil. Propose to Aunt Bluebell; she would
dance with astonishment, and she might recover her hearing."

III

That was how I first asked Margaret Lammas to be my wife, and I will
agree with any one who says I behaved very foolishly. But I have not
repented of it, and I never shall. I have long ago understood that I
was out of my mind that evening, but I think my temporary insanity on
that occasion has had the effect of making me a saner man ever since.
Her manner turned my head, for it was so different from what I had
expected. To hear this lovely creature, who, in my imagination, was a
heroine of romance,