pped any minute
investigation into its origin and real meaning. "Yes, dear; but we
need not have a fuss made about it at present, and perhaps put ma
against us. She wouldn't hear of our marrying now; and she might
forbid our engagement."

"But you are going away."

"I should have to go to New York or Europe FIRST, you know," she
answered, naively, "even if it were all settled. I should have to get
things! One couldn't be decent here."

With the recollection of the pink cotton gown, in which she had first
pledged her troth to him, before his eyes, he said, "But you are
charming now. You cannot be more so to me. If I am satisfied, little
one, with you as you are, let us go together, and then you can get
dresses to please others."

She had not expected this importunity. Really, if it came to this, she
might have engaged herself to some one like Slinn; he at least would
have understood her. He was much cleverer, and certainly more of a man
of the world. When Slinn had treated her like a child, it was with the
humorous tolerance of an admiring superior, and not the didactic
impulse of a guardian. She did not say this, nor did her pretty eyes
indicate it, as in the instance of her brief anger with Slinn. She
only said gently,--

"I should have thought you, of all men, would have been particular
about your wife doing the proper thing. But never mind! Don't let us
talk any more about it. Perhaps as it seems such a great thing to you,
and so much trouble, there may be no necessity for it at all."

I do not think that the young lady deliberately planned this charmingly
illogical deduction from Don Caesar's speech, or that she calculated
its effect upon him; but it was part of her nature to say it, and
profit by it. Under the unjust lash of it, his pride gave way.

"Ah, do you not see why I wish to go with you?" he said, with sudden
and unexpected passion. "You are beautiful; you are good; it has
pleased Heaven to make you rich also; but you are a child in
experience, and know not your own heart. With your beauty, your
goodness, and your wealth, you will attract all to you--as you do
here--because you cannot help it. But you will be equally helpless,
little one, if THEY should attract YOU, and you had no tie to fall back
upon."

It was an unfortunate speech. The words were Don Caesar's; but the
thought she had heard before from her mother, although the deduction
had been of a very different kind. Mam