u should try--you should try to mend
your ways in the future."

"Do you think you could do it?" he asked.

"What?" asked Carrissima.

"Shut your eyes!"

"Mark!" she cried, after a pause.

"Well?" he said.

"Look----"

She was leaning back with her eyes tightly closed; her little face
puckered, and one hand resting on each arm of the chair.

At the sight all Mark's hesitation fell away, and rising impulsively,
he took her cheeks between his palms and kissed her lips. The touch of
nature made them kin, but not within the tables of affinity. They
might have reasoned with themselves for months longer in vain, but
being thrown alone together, their feelings quickly found free play.

It was true that Carrissima, although she may have hoped, and indeed
she did devoutly hope for such a consummation, was in the sequel taken
rather sharply by surprise. She had not anticipated this sudden
_denouement_! The time for procrastination had passed, however, and as
she opened her eyes she wound her arms about Mark's neck.

"It must be nearly eight o'clock," she remarked, as she rose from her
chair a few minutes later, going at once to look in the mirror which
formed part of the overmantel.

"Carrissima," said Mark, "I begin to suspect----"

"What?" she demanded.

"That this must be a put-up job!"

"Oh, but Bridget would never dream of such a thing," said Carrissima.

"I should be rather sorry to say what she wouldn't be capable of.
Anyhow," Mark added, "it would be a pity to spoil a good intention!
You haven't said you will be my wife, you know."

"I--I fancied that I had," she was answering, when there arose a noise
outside the drawing-room as if some one had violently knocked over a
metal tray.

By the time the door opened, Carrissima was seated in the easy-chair
gazing at the fire, while Mark stood at the farther side of the small
room with one of David Rosser's novels (hastily snatched from a side
table) in his hand.

Enter Bridget, accompanied by Jimmy and looking her best in what might
have been her wedding dress.

"So immensely sorry!" she cried, hastening forward as Carrissima rose.

"She looks sorry, doesn't she?" said Jimmy, with a laugh. "You must
both try your hardest to forgive us," he added, as Bridget turned
towards Mark.

"I do hope you two good people haven't been bored to death," she
continued. "Especially as Mark seems to be reading one of my father's
books!"

"We've done our level