han for warmth,
and Ingram at least was in a particularly pleasant mood. For Sheila
had seized the opportunity, when her father had gone out of the room
for a few minutes, to say suddenly, "Oh, my dear friend, if you care
for her, you have a great happiness before you."

"Why, Sheila!" he said, staring.

"She cares for you more than you can think: I saw it to-night in
everything she said and did."

"I thought she was just a trifle saucy, do you know. She shunted me
out of the conversation altogether."

Sheila shook her head and smiled: "She was embarrassed. She suspects
that you like her, and that I know it, and that I came to see her. If
you ask her to marry you, she will do it gladly."

"Sheila," Ingram said with a severity that was not in his heart, "you
must not say such things. You might make fearful mischief by putting
these wild notions into people's heads."

"They are not wild notions," she said quietly. "A woman can tell what
another woman is thinking about better than a man."

"And am I to go to the Tyrol and ask her to marry me?" he said with
the air of a meek scholar.

"I should like to see you married--very, very much indeed," Sheila
said.

"And to her?"

"Yes to her," the girl said frankly. "For I am sure she has great
regard for you, and she is clever enough to put value on--on--But I
cannot flatter you, Mr. Ingram."

"Shall I send you word about what happens in the Tyrol?" he said,
still with the humble air of one receiving instructions.

"Yes."

"And if she rejects me, what shall I do?"

"She will not reject you."

"Shall I come to you for consolation, and ask you what you meant by
driving me on such a blunder?"

"If she rejects you," Sheila said with a smile, "it will be your own
fault, and you will deserve it. For you are a little too harsh with
her, and you have too much authority, and I am surprised that she
will be so amiable under it. Because, you know, a woman expects to
be treated with much gentleness and deference before she has said she
will marry. She likes to be entreated, and coaxed, and made much of,
but instead of that you are very overbearing with Mrs. Lorraine."

"I did not mean to be, Sheila," he said, honestly enough. "If anything
of the kind happened it must have been in a joke."

"Oh no, not a joke," Sheila said; "and I have noticed it before--the
very first evening you came to their house. And perhaps you did not
know of it yourself; and then Mrs. Lorraine,