arity set with two gay eyes; hair
dressed to tempt and cajole; a little figure of thin frailty that gave
her a beautiful delicacy of appearance; little, modish, manicured
hands.

She had such pretty arts; she fluttered about small domestic duties
with a delight dainty to see. She set a man imagining how desirable it
would be to build a nest for this delicate dear bird, and take her to
it, and live deliciously ever afterwards. This is what Osborn Kerr
imagined while--like Rokeby--he watched her. He had never seen her
other than pretty and dainty, than happy and gay; he could not conceive
of her otherwise. He had not the faintest doubt of being able to keep
her so, in that nest which he had built for two on the other side of
town. Whenever it was possible, in the teacup passing, he tried to
touch her hand; he longed for her to look at him; he wanted her all to
himself.

A week seemed over-long to wait.

Mrs. Amber watched him with a resigned and kindly eye. She was sighing
a little, kindly and resignedly, in her mind, and thinking how alike
men were in their courting. And presently, while Julia and Desmond
conversed with a formal hostility on the chesterfield, and the lovers
snatched brief moments for communication in lovers' code, she said:

"Osborn, another present came to-day; it's in the dining-room; Marie
ought to show it to you."

"Will you, Marie?" asked the young man, while his heart leapt, and the
pulses in his head seemed singing like larks on a summer morning.

"Would you care to see it?" she replied, with a studied sedateness
which Osborn found unutterably sweet, and which did not in the least
deceive the watching mother.

And in a moment the two were alone, it seemed in another world. This
new world was compassed by the walls of the slip of an apartment called
the dining-room, but which was kitchen as well, for there were no maids
in the flat. The top of the oak dresser had been cleared of its bits of
blue china and pewter to make way for the array of wedding gifts, and
they were presented bravely. Perhaps among the display was the last
received of which Mrs. Amber spoke, but whether it was, or was not,
neither Marie nor Osborn cared.

They were alone.

There had pressed upon them, hard and perpetually, during the eighteen
months of their engagement, the many difficulties with which
opportunity is cautiously guarded by its custodians. They met in
restaurants, in parks, and in the homes of either,