some one to talk to me, who will
not scold and quarrel incessantly, and who can sometimes behave like a
gentleman."

"Tell him so. It will raise him to the seventh heaven of delight, no
doubt," says Roger, in an indescribable tone.

"I thought it was arranged that we were not to speak to each other
again," says Dulce, with considerable severity.

Now Portia, being strange to the household, is a little frightened, and
a good deal grieved by this passage at arms.

"Is it really so bad as they would have us think?" she says, in a low
tone, to Sir Mark, whom she has beckoned to her side. "Is it really all
over between them?"

"Oh, dear, no!" says Sir Mark, with the fine smile that characterizes
his lean, dark face. "Don't make yourself unhappy; _we_ are quite
accustomed to their idiosyncrasies by this time; you, of course, have
yet much to learn. But, when I tell you that, to my certain knowledge,
they have bid each other an eternal adieu every week during the past
three years, you will have your first lesson in the art of understanding
them."

"Ah! you give me hope," says Portia, smiling.

At this moment Mr. Gower enters the room.

"Ah! how d'ye do!" says Dulce, nestling up to him, her soft skirts
making a gentle _frou-frou_ as she moves; "_so_ glad you have come. You
are late, are you not?" She gives him her hand, and smiles up into his
eyes. To all the others her excessive cordiality means only a desire to
chagrin Dare, to Stephen Gower it means--well, perhaps, at this point of
their acquaintance he hardly knows what it means--but it certainly
heightens her charms in his sight.

"Am I?" he says, in answer to her remark. "That is just what has been
puzzling me. My watch has gone to the bad, and all the way here I have
felt as if the distance between my place and the Hall was longer than I
had ever known it before. If I am to judge by my own impatience to be
here, I am late, indeed."

She smiles again at this, and says, softly:

"You are not wet, I hope? Such a day to come out. It was a little rash,
was it not?"

With the gentlest air of solicitude she lays one little white jeweled
hand upon his coat sleeve, as though to assure herself no rain had
alighted there. Gower laughs gaily.

"Wet? No," he says, gazing at her with unmistakable admiration. His eyes
betray the fact that he would gladly have lifted the small jeweled hand
from his arm to his lips; but, as it is, he does not dare so much as to
touch i