t to stay here. I'll leave directions that
I'm out to everybody, and----" Then did that designing matron pick up
his furs and deposit them--and him--in the library. "You're to stay
here, mind, till I get back."

"But you didn't," interposed his hearer, reproachfully, at this
juncture. "You burst in there like a--like a tiger, and scared me out of
my seven senses."

"That was entirely your fault. I was merely trying to escape from the
house. You see when I left Florida you were living, as I supposed, at
Miss Bonner's, and as soon as you came in it was my cue to leave, in
view of the ferocity of your remarks the last time we met here."

"Knowing how I must regret that, you need not have been so precipitate.
It was what I think you gentlemen call a 'stand-off,'" said she, with a
pretty grimace at the slang, "but--do you always take the roundabout way
to reach the door?" Miss Wallen's lips were twitching with suppressed
delight, and Captain Forrest was watching them with ill-suppressed
emotion. He rallied promptly, however.

"Rarely, but in this case I flew--to pick up the picture you had
dropped."

"Oh, the maid would have done that. She was promptly on hand."

"Yes, too promptly. So promptly as to inspire the belief that she
suspected something was on foot when you--when I---- By the way, what
became of that sprig of potato-vine, or chickweed, or something, that
was on top of the frame? Mrs. Wells missed it as soon as she came in."

"It fell into the grate, I presume; but it wasn't chickweed. There's
more of it if Mrs. Wells needs it," she added, nodding to the pendent
spray beneath the chandelier. "It doesn't signify."

"Oh, I thought it did--at least I hoped so. Mistletoe generally does."

"Not when mistaken for potato-vine," she answered, yet her eyes were
smiling at him.

"Jeannette," he said, impulsively, his deep voice trembling, as he stood
close before her and strove to seize the little hand that was toying at
her white, round throat, "mother's letter must surely be with you by
morning. It is very hard to keep my faith and plead no more until she
has pleaded for me. Must I wait? Will Miss Bonner bring it to you at
once?"

"I--hardly think so."

"Then may I not go to-night, if need be, and get it? It was addressed,
you know, to her care."

"Yes, so I observed."

"Jenny! Then you have it? You have read what she says? Oh, my darling!
Then----"

And what imploring love was in those soft, brown eyes