s."

"Eh, you're a nice boy," exclaimed Kathleen suddenly.

And Michael was not perfectly sure whether he thought himself a hero or
a martyr.

Mrs. Fane was very much diverted by Michael's account of Miss
McDonnell's accident, and teazed him gaily about Kathleen. Michael would
assume an expression of mystery, as if indeed he had been entrusted with
the dark secrets of a young woman's mind; but the more mysterious he
looked the more his mother laughed. In his own heart he cultivated
assiduously his devotion, and regretted most poignantly that each new
blouse and each chosen evening-dress was not for him. He used to watch
Kathleen at dinner, and depress himself with the imagination of her
spirit roaming out over the broad Midlands to meet her lover. He never
made the effort to conjure up the lover, but preferred to picture him
and Kathleen gathering like vague shapes upon the immeasurable
territories of the soul.

Then one morning Kathleen took him aside after breakfast to question his
steadfastness.

"Were you in earnest about what you said?" she asked.

"Of course I was," Michael affirmed.

"He's come down. He's staying in rooms. Why don't you ask me to go out
for a bicycle ride?"

"Well, will you?" Michael dutifully invited.

"I'm so excited," said Kathleen, fluttering off to tell her sister of
this engagement to go riding with Michael.

In about half an hour they stood outside the small red-brick house which
cabined the bold spirit of Michael's depressed fancies.

"You'll come in and say 'how do you do'?" suggested Kathleen.

"I suppose I'd better," Michael agreed.

They entered together the little efflorescent parlour of the house.

"This is my fiance--Mr. Walter Trimble," Kathleen proudly announced.

"Pleased to meet you," said Mr. Trimble. "Kath tells me you're on to do
us a good turn."

Michael looked at Mr. Trimble, resolutely anxious to find in him the
creator of Kathleen's noble destiny. He saw a thick-set young man in a
splendidly fitting, but ill-cut blue serge suit; he saw a dark moustache
of silky luxuriance growing amid regular features; in fact, he saw
someone that might have stepped from one of the grandiose frames of that
efflorescent little room. But he was Kathleen's choice, and Michael
refused to let himself feel at all disappointed.

"I think it's bad luck not to be able to marry, if one wants to," said
Michael deeply.

"You're right," Mr. Trimble agreed. "That's why I want Ka