, "but
grandma likes yarning with you, that's why I inquired."

"Dora" looked very red in the face indeed.

"How's Miss Cowper?" mercilessly pursued Dawn, going to the point
about which she was curious, as is characteristic of swains and maids
of her degree. "I hope she's well."

"So do I," said Eweword.

"You used to ask after her health about twice a-day. I thought you
would be taking her to Lucerne Farm to relieve your anxiety;" and in
response to this "Dora" sealed his fate, as far as my feeling any
compunction whether he singed his wings or not in the light of Dawn's
bright candle, for he said with a touch of bravado--

"Oh, I was only pulling her leg."

To do the man justice he did not seem down to the full unmanliness of
this statement; it appeared more one of those nasty and idle remarks
to which all are prone when in a tight corner, and speaking on the
spur of the moment.

"Oh, was that all!" said Dawn mockingly. "It was very nice of you. Are
you always so kind and thoughtful?"

"I'm thinking of clearing out to Sydney in a day or two, I've spent
enough time loafing. The only thing that has kept me here so long is
that I wanted to hear how Les. got on in his maiden speech. We're not
much to each other, but when a fellow has no one belonging to him he
feels a claim on the most distant connection," said Ernest on the
other side of me. His interest in Leslie Walker's maiden speech had
been developed as suddenly as his opinion that he had spent enough
time in a boat on the river Noonoon.

The connection he mentioned between himself and the candidate about to
speak was that old Walker, whose only son the latter was, had married
a widow with one son, by name Ernest Breslaw. Both these parents were
now dead, leaving the step-brothers as their only offspring. The lads
had been reared together, and though of utterly different tastes and
callings, a mutual regard existed between them. Walker had passed his
examinations at the bar, and Breslaw had been trained to electrical
engineering, but both being wealthy, neither followed their
professions except in a nominal way. Walker had put in his time in
society, motoring, flirting, travelling, dabbling in the arts, and
building a fine town mansion, while Ernest had spent all his time in
athletic training, with the result that Walker had fallen a prize in
the marriage arena, while Ernest was yet in full possession of his
bachelorhood.

Any further conversation was