e before you part with him, believe me, it is my fault, who
tell his story clumsily, and not his. For the lady of his love there
might be more to say, if I were one of those clever people who read
women. As it is, you shall make your own reading of her, and shall
dislike her on your own personal responsibility, or love her for her
transparent merits, and for the sake of no stupid analysis of mine.

Do you know the Adriatic? It pleases me to begin a love story over its
translucent sapphire and under its heavenly skies. I shall rejoice again
in its splendours as I hover in fancy over these two impressionable
young hearts, to whom a new glamour lives upon its beauties.

Papa and Mamma Leland are placidly asleep on the saloon deck, beneath
the flapping awning. Leland Junior is carrying on a pronounced
flirtation with a little Greek girl, and Lilian and Barndale are each
enjoying their own charming spiritual discomforts. They say little,
but, like the famous parrot, they think the more. Concerning one thing,
however, Mr. Barndale thinks long and deeply, pulling his tawny beard
meanwhile. Lilian, gazing with placid-seeming spirit on the deep, is
apparently startled by the suddenness of his address.

'Miss Leland!'

'How you startled me!' she answers, turning her hazel eyes upon him. She
has been waiting these last five minutes for him to speak, and knew that
he was about it. But take notice that these small deceits in the gentle
sex are natural, and by no means immoral.

'I am disturbed in mind,' says Barndale, blushing a httle behind his
bronze, 'about an incident of yesterday.'

'Conscience,' says Lilian, calmly didactic, 'will assert herself
occasionally.'

'Conscience,' says Barndale, blushing a httle more perceptibly, 'has
httle to do with this disturbance. Why did you laugh when I said that it
was singular that we should be making this pleasant journey together?'

'Did I laugh?' she asked demurely. Then quite suddenly, and with an air
of denunciation.

'Ask James.'

Barndale rises obediently.

'No, no,' says the lady. 'Sit down, Mr. Barndale. I was only joking.
There was no reason.' And now the young lady is blushing. 'Did I really
laugh?'

'You smiled,' says the guilty Barndale. 'At what?' inquires she with
innocent inadvertency.

'Oh!' cries the young fellow, laughing outright, 'that is too bad. Why
_did_ you laugh when I said it was singular?'

'I am not prepared,' she answers, 'to account for all m