ill now. The revelation bewildered her and she wrote her
emotions in many long pages to her cousin. The causes of such changes
she did not indeed specify, but he read between the lines, and knew it
was a man and not the war that had so altered and deepened her outlook.
He had never done it, and he could not be angry with her now, for she
had pretended no ardor of emotion to him. Young though he was, he always
feared that she liked him not after the way of a lover. He had hoped to
open her eyes some day, but it was given to another to do so.

He felt no surprise, therefore, when news of her engagement reached him
from herself. He wrote the letter of his life in reply, and was at pains
to laugh at their boy-and-girl attachment, and lessen any regret she
might feel on his account. Her father took it somewhat hardly at first,
for he held that more than sufficient misfortunes, to correct the
balance of prosperity in his favor, had already befallen him. But he was
deeply attached to his daughter, and her magical change under the new
and radiant revelation convinced him that she had now awakened to an
emotional fulness of life which could only be the outward sign of love.
That she was in love for the first time also seemed clear; but he would
not give his consent until he had seen her lover and heard all there was
to know about him. That, however, did not alarm Mary, for she believed
that Thomas May must prove a spirit after Sir Walter's heart. And so he
did. The sailor was a gentleman; he had proposed without the faintest
notion to whom he offered his penniless hand, and when he did find out,
was so bewildered that Mary assured her father she thought he would
change his mind.

"If I had not threatened him with disgrace and breach of promise, I do
think he would have thrown me over," she said.

And now they had been wedded for six months, and Mary sat by the great
log fire with her hand in Tom's. The sailor was on leave, but
expected to return to his ship at Plymouth in a day or two. Then his
father-in-law had promised to visit the great cruiser, for the Navy was
a service of which he knew little. Lennoxes had all been soldiers or
clergymen since a great lawyer founded the race.

The game of billiards proceeded, and Henry caught his uncle in the
eighties and ran out with an unfinished fifteen. Then Ernest Travers and
his wife--old and dear friends of Sir Walter--played a hundred up, the
lady receiving half the game. Mr. Tra