for which she blushed and of
which she did not repent.

"And I love you," he answered--"fervently, madly if you like. I never
knew what love was before I knew you, my darling. When you are all my
own I will make you confess that the love of an English gentleman is
worth living for."

"_You_ are worth living for," said Leam with timid fervor, defending
him against all possible rivalry of circumstance or person. "I do not
care about your English gentlemen. It is only you."

"That brute of a Jones!" muttered Edgar as he put his arm round her
waist and glanced toward the door.

"No," said Leam gravely, shrinking back, "you must not do that."

"What a shy wild bird it is!" he said lovingly, though he was
disappointed. And he did not like this kind of disappointment. "Will
you never be tamed, my Leam?"

"Not to that," said innocent Leam in the same grave way; and Edgar
smiled behind his golden beard, but not so that she could see the
smile.

"Ah, but you must obey me now--do as I tell you in everything," he
said with perfect seriousness of mien and accent. "You have given
yourself to me now, and if I ask you to kiss me you must, just as
readily as Fina, and let me caress and pet you as much as I like."

"Must I? but I do not like it," said Leam simply.

He laughed outright, and--Jones not looking--took her hand and carried
it to his lips. "Is this unpleasant?" he asked, looking up from under
his eyebrows.

Leam blushed, hesitated, trembled. "No," she then said in a low voice,
"not from you."

On which he kissed it again, and Leam had no wish to retract her
confession.

"Now go and make ready to come to the castle," he said after a
moment's pause. "I told you before that you must obey me, now that you
have promised to be my wife. Command is the husband's privilege, Leam,
and obedience the wife's happiness: don't you know? So come, darling!
They were all to assemble at two," looking at his watch, "and here we
are close on three! You do not wish not to go now, my pet?"

"No," said Leam, with her happy little fleeting smile: "I am glad to
go. I shall be with you, and you wish it."

"What an exquisite little creature! In a week she will come to my
hand like a tame bird," was Edgar's thought as he watched her slender,
graceful figure slowly crossing the lawn with that undulating step
of her mother's nation. "In a week's time I shall have tamed her," he
repeated with a difference; and he felt glad that he had besp