his step was on the stair as she spoke.

"You are late, Mr. Arbuthnot," said Mr. Emblem, reproachfully, "you
are late, sir, and somehow we get no music now until you come. Play us
something, Iris. It is my move, Lala--"

Iris opened the piano and Arnold sat down beside her, and their eyes
met. There was in each the consciousness of what had passed.

"I shall speak to him to-night, Iris," Arnold whispered. "I have
already written to my cousin. Do not be hurt if she does not call upon
you."

"Nothing of that sort will hurt me," Iris said, being ignorant of
social ways, and without the least ambition to rise in the world. "If
your cousin does not call upon me I shall not be disappointed. Why
should she want to know me? But I am sorry, Arnold, that she is angry
with you."

Lala Roy just then found himself in presence of a most beautiful
problem--white to move and checkmate in three moves. Mr. Emblem found
the meshes of fate closing round him earlier than usual, and both bent
their heads closely over the table.

"Checkmate!" said Lala Roy. "My friend, you have played badly this
evening."

"I have played badly," Mr. Emblem replied, "because to-morrow will be
an important day for Iris, and for myself. A day, Iris, that I have
been looking forward to for eighteen years, ever since I got your
father's last letter, written upon his death-bed. It seems a long
time, but like a lifetime," said the old man of seventy-five, "it is
as nothing when it is gone. Eighteen years, and you were a little
thing of three, child!"

"What is going to happen to me, grandfather, except that I shall be
twenty-one?"

"We shall see to-morrow. Patience, my dear--patience."

He spread out his hands and laughed. What was going to happen to
himself was a small thing compared with the restoration of Iris to her
own.

"Mr. Emblem," said Arnold, "I also have something of importance to
say."

"You, too, Mr. Arbuthnot? Cannot yours wait also until to-morrow?"

"No; it is too important. It cannot wait an hour."

"Well, sir"--Mr. Emblem pushed up his spectacles and leaned back in
his chair--"well, Mr. Arbuthnot, let us have it."

"I think you may guess what I have to say, Mr. Emblem. I am sure that
Lala Roy has already guessed it."

The philosopher inclined his head in assent.

"It is that I have this afternoon asked Iris to marry me, Mr. Emblem.
And she has consented."

"Have you consented, Iris, my dear?" said her grandfather.

She pl