to-night. What's
the matter?" And as he said nothing, but stood confused with his hands
in his pockets, she went on. "You, too, seem rather ruffled. Look at
your hair."

Doggie, turning to a mirror, perceived that an agitated hand had
disturbed the symmetry of his sleek black hair, brushed without a
parting away from the forehead over his head. Hastily he smoothed down
the cockatoo-like crest.

"I've been talking to your father, Peggy."

"Have you really?" she said with a laugh.

Marmaduke summoned his courage.

"He told me I might ask you to marry me," he said.

"Do you want to?"

"Of course I do," he declared.

"Then why not do it?"

But before he could answer, she clapped her hands on his shoulders,
and shook him, and laughed out loud.

"Oh, you dear silly old thing! What a way to propose to a girl!"

"I've never done such a thing before," said Doggie, as soon as he was
released.

She resumed her attitude on the hearthrug.

"I'm in no great hurry to be married. Are you?"

He said: "I don't know. I've never thought of it. Just whenever you
like."

"All right," she returned calmly. "Let it be a year hence. Meanwhile,
we can be engaged. It'll please the dear old birds. I know all the
tabbies in the town have been mewing about us. Now they can mew about
somebody else."

"That's awfully good of you, Peggy," said Marmaduke. "I'll go up to
town to-morrow and get you the jolliest ring you ever saw."

She sketched him a curtsy. "That's one thing, at any rate, I can trust
you in--your taste in jewellery."

He moved nearer to her. "I suppose you know, Peggy dear, I've been
awfully fond of you for quite a long time."

"The feeling is more or less reciprocated," she replied lightly. Then,
"You can kiss me if you like. I assure you it's quite usual."

He kissed her somewhat shyly on the lips.

She whispered: "I do think I care for you, old thing." Marmaduke
replied sententiously: "You have made me a very happy man." Then they
sat down side by side on the sofa, and for all Peggy's mocking
audacity, they could find nothing in particular to say to each other.

"Let us play patience," she said at last.

And when Mrs. Conover appeared awhile later, she found them poring
over the cards in a state of unruffled calm. Peggy looked up, smiled,
and nodded.

"We've fixed it up, Mummy; but we're not going to be married for a
year."

Doggie went home that evening in a tepid glow. It contented him. He
thought