"Nothing of the sort! I like grit, and if you've got rayther more than
your share, why, when you're Mrs. Parmalee it will be amusing to take
it out of you. And now I'm off, and by all that's great and glorious,
there'll be howling and gnashing of teeth in this here old shop before
I return."

"You go without seeing my lady, then?" said Sybilla.

"My lady's got to come to me!" retorted the artist, sullenly. "It's
her turn to eat humble pie now, and she'll finish the dish, by George,
before I've done with her! I'm going back to the tavern, down the
village, and so you can tell her; and if she wants me, she can put her
pride in her pocket and come there and find me."

"And I, too?" said Sybilla, anxiously. "Remember your promise to
reveal all to me, George. Am I to seek you out at the inn, too, and
await your sovereign pleasure?"

She laid her hands on his shoulders and looked up in his face with eyes
few men could resist. They were quite alone in the vast hall--no
prying eyes to see that tender caress. Mr. Parmalee was a good deal of
a stoic and a little of a cynic; but he was flesh and blood, as even
stoics and cynics are, and the man under sixty was not born who could
have resisted that dark, bewitching, wheedling, beautiful face.

The American artist took her in his long arms with a vigorous hug, and
favored her with a sounding kiss.

"I'll tell you, Sybilla. Hanged if I don't believe you can twist me
round your little finger if you choose! You're as pretty as a
picture--you are, I swear and I love you like all creation; and I'll
marry you just as soon as this little business is settled, and I'll
take you to Maine, and keep you in the tallest sort of clover. I never
calk'lated on having a British gal for a wife; but you're handsome
enough and spunky enough for a president's lady, and I don't care a
darn what the folks round our section say about it. I'll tell you,
Sybilla; but you mustn't split to a living soul, or my cake's dough.
They say a woman can't keep a secret; but you must try, if you should
burst for it. I reckon my lady will come down handsomely before I've
done with her, and you and me, Sybilla, can go to housekeeping across
the three thousand miles of everlasting wet in tip-top style. Come
to-night; you've got to come to me now."

"I suppose I will find you at the inn?"

"I suppose so. 'Tain't likely," said Mr. Parmalee, with a sulky sense
of injury, "you'll find me prancing up and