not be much kissing in the world. Moreover,
stolen kisses, like stolen fruit, have a piquant flavour of their own.

The quaint old drawing-room, with its low ceiling and twilight
atmosphere, was certainly an ideal place for love-making. It was
furnished with chairs, and tables, and couches, which had done duty in
the days of Miss Whichello's grandparents; and if the carpet was old, so
much the better, for its once brilliant tints had faded into soft hues
more restful to the eye. In one corner stood the grandfather of all
pianos, with a front of drawn green silk fluted to a central button;
beside it a prim canterbury, filled with primly-bound books of
yellow-paged music, containing, 'The Battle of the Prague,' 'The
Maiden's Prayer,' 'Cherry Ripe,' and 'The Canary Bird's Quadrilles.'
Such tinkling melodies had been the delight of Miss Whichello's youth,
and--as she had a fine finger for the piano (her own observation)--she
sometimes tinkled them now on the jingling old piano when old friends
came to see her. Also there were Chippendale cupboards with glass doors,
filled with a most wonderful collection of old china--older even than
their owner; Chinese jars heaped up with dried rose leaves spreading
around a perfume of dead summers; bright silken screens from far Japan;
foot-stools and fender-stools worked in worsted which tripped up the
unwary; and a number of oil-paintings valuable rather for age than
beauty. None of your modern flimsy drawing-rooms was Miss Whichello's,
but a dear, delightful, cosy room full of faded splendours and relics of
the dead and gone so dearly beloved. From the yellow silk fire-screen
swinging on a rosewood pole, to the drowsy old canary chirping feebly in
his brass cage at the window, all was old-world and marvellously proper
and genteel. Withal, a quiet, perfumed room, delightful to make love in,
to the most beautiful woman in the world, as Captain George Pendle knew
very well.

'Though it really isn't proper for you to kiss me,' observed Mab,
folding her slender hands on her white gown. 'You know we are not
engaged.'

'I know nothing of the sort, my dearest prude. You are the only woman I
ever intend to marry. Have you any objections? If so, I should like to
hear them.'

'I am two years older than you, George.'

'A man is as old as he looks, a woman as she feels. I am quite
convinced, Miss Arden, that you feel nineteen years of age, so the
disparity rests rather on my shoulders than o