d friend, and so nice in every way."

Here she smiles involuntarily, and, after a little bit, laughs
outright, in spite of herself, as though at some ridiculous
recollection.

"Do you know," she says, "when I told Horace I thought I should like
Sir James to know of our engagement, I really think he felt a little
jealous! At least, he didn't half like it. How absurd!--wasn't it?
Fancy being jealous of dear old Jim?"

"Old!--old! He is a long way off that. Why, all you silly little girls
think a man past twenty-nine to be hovering on the brink of the
grave. He can not be more than thirty-three, or so."

"He is very dreadfully old, for all that," says Miss Peyton, wilfully.
"He is positively ancient; I never knew any one so old. He is so
profound, and earnest, and serious, and----"

"What on earth has he done to you, that you should call him all these
terrible names?" says Mr. Peyton, laughing.

"He scolds me," says Clarissa, "he lectures me, and tells me I should
have an aim in life. You have been my aim, darling, and I have been
very devoted to it, haven't I?"

"You have, indeed. But now I shall be out in the cold, of course." His
tone is somewhat wistful. "That is all one gains by lavishing one's
affection upon a pretty child and centring one's every thought and
hope upon her."

"No, you are wrong there; it must be something to gain love that will
last for ever." She tightens her arm around his neck. "What a horrid
little speech! I could almost fancy James dictated it to you. He is a
sceptic, an unbeliever, and you have imbibed his notions. Cynical
people are a bore. You wouldn't, for example, have me fall in love
with James, would you?"

"Indeed I would," says George Peyton, boldly. "He is just the one man
I would choose for you,--'not Launcelot, nor another.' He is so
genuine, so thorough in every way. And then the estates join, and
that. I really wish you had fallen in love with Scrope."

"I love you dearly,--dearly," says Miss Peyton; "but you are a
dreadful goose! James is the very last man to grow sentimental about
any one,--least of all, me. He thinks me of no account at all, and
tells me so in very polite language occasionally. So you see what a
fatal thing it would have been if I had given my heart to him. He
would have broken it, and I should have died, and you would have put
up a touching, and elaborate tablet to my memory, and somebody would
have planted snowdrops on my grave. There would have b