ld be wicked."

"Well, you can either play hookey from church, or run away Sunday
afternoons, or if you prefer and she is able, I will drive your
grandmother over here and you can play pinocle in my study."

"Then I do think she will live to be a hundred," said Annie with a
peal of laughter.

"Stop laughing and kiss me," said Von Rosen.

"I seldom kiss anybody."

"That is the reason."

When Annie looked up from her lover's shoulder, a pair of topaz eyes
were mysteriously regarding her.

"The cat never saw me kiss anybody," said Von Rosen.

"Do you think the cat knows?" asked Annie, blushing and moving away a
little.

"Who knows what any animal knows or does not know?" replied Von
Rosen. "When we discover that mystery, we may have found the key to
existence."

Then the cat sprang into Annie's blue lap and she stroked his yellow
back and looked at Von Rosen with eyes suddenly reflective, rather
coolly.

"After all, I, nor nobody else, ever heard of such a thing as this,"
said she. "Do you mean that you consider this an engagement?" she
asked in astonishment.

"I most certainly do."

"After we have only really seen and talked to each other twice!"

"It has been all our lives and we have just found it out," said Von
Rosen. "Of course, it is unusual, but who cares? Do you?"

"No, I don't," said Annie. They leaned together over the yellow cat
and kissed each other.

[Illustration: They leaned together over the yellow cat and kissed
each other]

"But what an absurd minister's wife I shall be," said Annie. "To
think of your marrying a girl who has staid at home from church and
played cards with her grandmother!"

"I am not at all sure," said Von Rosen, "that you do not get more
benefit, more spiritual benefit, than you would have done from my
sermons."

"I think," said Annie, "that you are just about as funny a minister
as I shall be a minister's wife."

"I never thought I should be married at all."

"Why not?"

"I did not care for women."

"Then why do you now?"

"Because you are a woman."

Then there was a sudden movement in front of them. The leaf-shadows
flickered; the cat jumped down from Annie's lap and ran away, his
great yellow plume of tail waving angrily, and Margaret Edes stood
before them. She was faultlessly dressed as usual. A woman of her
type cannot be changed utterly by force of circumstances in a short
time. Her hat was loaded with wisteria. She wore a wisteria gown of
sof