lly.

"Well, really, he looked like it," says Gore. "A more vinegary aspect it
has seldom been my lot to gaze upon, for which I acknowledge my
gratitude. My dear Portia, unless you intend to go in for rheumatics
before your time, you will get up from that damp grass and come home
with me."

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break."
--_In Memoriam._

"DID _he_--I mean did _you_--ever--; Dulce, will you be very angry with
me if I ask you a question?"

"No. But I hope it won't be a disagreeable one," says Dulce, glancing at
him cautiously.

"That is just as you may look at it," says Roger. "But I suppose I may
say it--after all, we are like brother and sister are we not?"

"Ye-es. _Quite_ like brother and sister," says Dulce, but somehow this
thought seems to give her no pleasure.

"Only we are _not_, you know," puts in Roger, rather hastily.

"No, of course we are _not_," replies she, with equal haste.

"Well, then, look here--"

But even now that he has got so far, he hesitates again, looks earnestly
at her, and pulls his mustache uncertainly, as if half afraid to go any
further.

It is the afternoon of the next day, and as the sun has come out in
great force, and the mildness of the day almost resembles Spring in its
earliest stages; they are all about the place, strolling hither and
thither, whithersoever pleasant fancy guides them.

Roger and Dulce, after lingering for some time in the Winter garden
looking at the snowdrops, and such poor foster-babes as have thrust
their pallid faces above the warm earth, that, like a cruel stepmother,
has driven them too early from her breast, have moved slowly onwards
until they find themselves beside a fountain that used to be a favorite
haunt of theirs long ago.

Dulce, seating herself upon the stone-work that surrounds it, though the
water is too chilly to be pleasant, still toys lightly with it with her
idle fingers, just tipping it coquettishly now and then, with her eyes
bent thoughtfully upon as it sways calmly to and fro beneath the touch
of the cold wind that passes over it.

Just now she raises her eyes and fixes them inquiringly on Roger.

"Go on," she says, quietly. "You were surely going to ask me something.
Are you afraid of me?"

"A little, I confess."

"You need not." She is still looking at him very earnestly.

"Well, then," says Ro