y. "Oh, if you
could only keep it to yourself, I should like to tell you how I trust
and admire and reverence Ronald Macdonald, but of course you will repeat
everything to Willie Beresford within the hour! You think he has gone on
and on loving me against his better judgment. You believe he has fought
against it because of my unfitness, but that I, poor, weak, trivial
thing, am not capable of deep feeling and that I shall never appreciate
the sacrifices he makes in choosing me! Very well, then, I tell you
plainly that if I had to live in a damp manse the rest of my life, drink
tea and eat scones for breakfast, and--and buy my hats of the Inchcaldy
milliner, I should still glory in the possibility of being Ronald
Macdonald's wife--a possibility hourly growing more uncertain, I am
sorry to say!"

"And the extreme aversion with which you began," I asked--"what
has become of that, and when did it begin to turn in the opposite
direction?"

"Aversion!" she cried, with convincing and unblushing candour. "That
aversion was a cover, clapped on to keep my self-respect warm. I abused
him a good deal, it is true, because it was so delightful to hear you
and Salemina take his part. Sometimes I trembled for fear you would
agree with me, but you never did. The more I criticised him, the louder
you sang his praises--it was lovely! The fact is--we might as well throw
light upon the whole matter, and then never allude to it again; and if
you tell Willie Beresford, you shall never visit my manse, nor see me
preside at my mothers' meetings, nor hear me address the infant class in
the Sunday-school--the fact is, I liked him from the beginning at Lady
Baird's dinner. I liked the bow he made when he offered me his arm (I
wish it had been his hand); I liked the top of his head when it was
bowed; I liked his arm when I took it; I liked the height of his
shoulder when I stood beside it; I liked the way he put me in my chair
(that showed chivalry), and unfolded his napkin (that was neat and
business-like), and pushed aside all his wine-glasses but one (that was
temperate); I liked the side view of his nose, the shape of his collar,
the cleanness of his shave, the manliness of his tone--oh, I liked him
altogether, you must know how it is, Penelope--the goodness and strength
and simplicity that radiated from him. And when he said, within the
first half-hour, that international alliances presented even more
difficulties to the imagination than oth