t brown eyes
glowed and scintillated, her nostrils dilated, her lips quivered with
outraged pride and delicacy.

Her dress of dead black fell in soft, clinging folds about her slender
form, making her seem taller than she really was, while one hand had been
raised to enforce the commands which she had laid upon him.

He thought her the fairest vision he had ever seen, in spite of her
indignation against him, and if she had sought to fascinate him--to weave
the spell of her witchery more effectually about him, she could have
taken no surer way to do so.

He could not fail to admire her spirit--it but served to glorify her in
his sight, and made him more eager than before to conquer her.

"Nay, do not leave me thus--do not be so bitter against me, my peerless
Ruth," he pleaded. "Perhaps I have been premature in my avowal, but I beg
that you will not despise me on that account. Do not judge me so harshly.
Lay my impatience rather to my eagerness to win you. I would do anything
in the world to make you love me, and now, I fear, I have only been
driving you farther from me. I love you, honestly and sincerely, my
beautiful Ruth, and I would not only dare to confess it to my aunt, but
proclaim it before the world, if that would serve to prove it to you. Ah!
teach me how to woo you, my darling; give me but a crumb of hope upon
which to feed, and I will try to be satisfied until you can learn to
have more confidence in me."

He reached forth his arms as if he would have infolded her; and Mona, who
for the moment had been rendered spell-bound by the swift rush of burning
words that he had poured forth, seemed suddenly electrified by the act.

She felt both insulted and humiliated by this premature avowal of a
love that had not received the slightest encouragement from her, and
she recoiled from him with a gesture of contempt.

"I wonder how you have dared to say this to me," she cried, in a voice
that quivered with indignation, "when in my very presence you have shown
another attentions such as a man has a right to bestow only upon the
woman whom he intends to marry. But for the respect I owe myself and my
sex, I would like to brand you with a mark that would betray your
disloyalty to the world, and make Miss McKenzie despise you as I do;
being only a weak woman, however, I must content myself with simply
manifesting my scorn, and by telling you to go!" and she pointed
authoritatively toward the door with one white taper f