ting, after a cruel year of parting and
sadness," said Rorie, drawing the bright young face to his own, and
covering it with kisses.

Again Vixen urged that Miss Skipwith would be wondering, and this time
with such insistence, that Rorie was obliged to turn back and ascend
the hill.

"How cruel it is of you to snatch a soul out of Elysium," he
remonstrated. "I felt as if I was lost in some happy dream--wandering
down this path, which leads I know not where, into a dim wooded vale,
such as the fairies love to inhabit?"

"The road leads down to the inn at Le Tac, where Cockney excursionists
go to eat lobsters, and play skittles," said Vixen, laughing at her
lover.

They went back to the manor house, where they found Miss Skipwith
annotating a tremendous manuscript on blue foolscap, a work whose
outward semblance would have been enough to frighten and deter any
publisher in his right mind.

"How late you are, Violet," she said, looking up dreamily from her
manuscript. "I have been rewriting and polishing portions of my essay
on Buddha. The time has flown, and I had no idea of the hour till
Doddery came in just now to ask if he could shut up the house. And then
I remembered that you had gone out to the gate to watch for Mr.
Vawdrey."

"I'm afraid you must think our goings on rather eccentric," Rorie began
shyly; "but perhaps Vix----Miss Tempest has told you what old friends
we are; that, in fact, I am quite the oldest friend she has. I came to
Jersey on purpose to ask her to marry me, and she has been good
enough"--smiling blissfully at Vixen, who tried to look daggers at
him--"to say Yes."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Skipwith, looking much alarmed; "this is very
embarrassing. I am so unversed in such matters. My life has been given
up to study, far from the haunts of man. My nephew informed me that
there was a kind of--in point of fact--a flirtation between Miss
Tempest and a gentleman in Hampshire, of which he highly disapproved,
the gentleman being engaged to marry his cousin."

"It was I," cried Rorie, "but there was no flirtation between Miss
Tempest and me. Whoever asserted such a thing was a slanderer and----I
won't offend you by saying what he was, Miss Skipwith. There was no
flirtation. I was Miss Tempest's oldest friend--her old playfellow, and
we liked to see each other, and were always friendly together. But it
was an understood thing that I was to marry my cousin. It was Miss
Tempest's particular des