an adorable smile--"to mend it again."

"My own love," says Dorian, "what can I do? I would offer you mine in
exchange, but, you see, you broke it many a month ago, so the bargain
would do you no good. Let us both make up our minds to heal each
other's wounds, and so make restitution."

"Sweet heart, I bid you be healed," says Georgie, laying her small
hand, with a pretty touch of tenderest coquetry, upon his breast. And
then a second silence falls upon them, that lasts even longer than the
first. The moments fly; the breezes grow stronger, and shake with
petulant force the waving boughs. The night is falling, and "weeps
perpetual dews, and saddens Nature's scene."

"Why do you not speak?" says Georgie, after a little bit, rubbing her
cheek softly against his. "What is it that you want?"

"Nothing. Don't you know that 'Silence is the perfectest herald of
joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much'?"

"How true that is! yet somehow, I always want to talk," says Mrs.
Branscombe,--at which they both laugh.

"Come home," says Dorian: "it grows cold as charity, and I'm getting
desperately hungry besides. Are you?"

"I'm starving," says Georgie, genially. "There, now; they say people
never want to eat anything when they are in love and when they are
filled with joy. And I haven't been hungry for weeks, until this very
moment."

"Just shows what awful stuff some fellows will talk," says Mr.
Branscombe, with an air of very superior contempt. After which they go
on their homeward journey until they reach the shrubbery.

Here voices, coming to them from a side-path, attract their notice.

"That is Clarissa," says Georgie: "I suppose she has come out to find
me. Let us wait for her here."

"And Scrope is with her. I wish she would make up her mind to marry
him," says Branscombe. "I am certain they are devoted to each other,
only they can't see it. Want of brain, I suppose."

"They certainly are exceedingly foolish, both of them," says Georgie,
emphatically.

The voices are drawing nearer; as their owners approach the corner
that separates them from the Branscombes, Clarissa says, in a clear,
audible tone,--

"I never in all my life knew two such silly people!"

"Good gracious!" says Branscombe, going up to her. "What people?"

"You two!" says Clarissa, telling the truth out of sheer fright.

"You will be so kind as to explain yourself, Clarissa," says Dorian,
with dignity. "Georgie and I have long a