ly to and fro, nuzzling floating specks upon the
surface. Through the polished green of the surrounding palms and
rubber-plants stared gardenias and camelias; below, between maidenhair
and sword-ferns, winked the little waxen blossoms of fuchsias and
begonias: at intervals poinsettia flared audaciously among its more
quietly dressed neighbors; and, in the far corners the golden spheres
were swelling to fairly respectable proportions on the branches of dwarf
orange-trees.

Dorothy installed herself on a bench, and young Nisbet perched upon the
rim of the pool, and stared at vacancy.

"It's corking, in here," he said, after a moment.

"Isn't it, though?" agreed Dorothy, with a nod of approval. "It's my
favorite part of the house. You can't imagine how many hours I spend
here, sewing, or reading, or fiddling with the fish and all those funny
little plants under the palms."

"You bet!" said young Nisbet, with enthusiasm, if not much relevancy.
"I've just got a picture of that, you know. Besides, we've spent a good
many of those hours together in here, these past few months."

"Oh, not a tenth of them!" exclaimed Dorothy, "and then only the very
shortest."

"Oh!" said young Nisbet gloomily. His fertile imagination was
immediately peopled with the forms and faces of those who had shared the
other hours, a score of eligible and attractive young men, his moral,
mental, and physical superiors in every conceivable particular,
faultlessly arrayed, scintillating with wit, and surpassingly skilled in
the way to win a woman. The conservatory was full of them. He saw them
in every imaginable posture: feeding the gold-fish, watering the
begonias, looking up into Dorothy's eyes as they sat at her feet,
looking down at her slender fingers, as she pinned gardenias to their
lapels. And these had been granted the long hours, he only the short.
Inwardly, young Nisbet groaned; aloud, as was his wont, he said the
wrong thing.

"They seemed long enough to me."

"_Well!_" said Dorothy.

"Oh, hang it all! I didn't mean that. What an oaf I am!"

"Never mind," said Dorothy consolingly. "I know you well enough to
understand you, by this time." She smoothed her skirt reflectively.
"Let me see," she added, "what were we talking about when we were
swamped by the family?"

"I think," answered young Nisbet, with one of his illogical blushes,
"that I had just asked you what sort of a man you thought you would like
to marry. I remember I was