lunged.

Both Dorothy and Richard were inclined to agree with their monitress.
Richard was too wholly of the battle-ax breed to favor stealth and
creeping about. It was in his heart to marry Dorothy defiantly, and at
noon. Dorothy's reasons were less robust; she was thinking on her father
and "Uncle Pat," and all their kindnesses. She could not make up her
loyal heart to any step that smacked of treachery to them.

"And yet," observed Richard, "here we are where we started." Then
turning to Bess: "You have told us what we should not do, and told us
extremely well. Now bend your sage brows to the question of what we
ought to do. Or, to phrase it this fashion, What ought I to do?"

"Go to Mrs. Hanway-Harley and ask for her daughter."

Richard winced and made a wry face.

"I'd sooner go to Storri. The rascal might give me a reason for
thrashing him."

"You are on no account to mention Dorothy's name to Storri."

"No?" somewhat ruefully.

"And you are to beat him only should he mention Dorothy's name to you."

"I shall;" and Richard brightened.

"Storri asked Mrs. Hanway-Harley for her daughter. I should think you
might summon up an equal courage."

"But I haven't the advantage of being a Russian nobleman," returned
Richard, with one of his cynical grins.

"Still you must ask Mrs. Hanway-Harley for Dorothy; and no later, mind
you, than to-morrow night." Bess tossed her head as though a fiat had
gone forth.

"Well," said Richard, drawing a deep breath, "if you have any such junk
as a Joss about the house, I'd take it friendly if you would burn a
handful of prayer-sticks in my interest." Then, with all love's
softness, to Dorothy: "Your mother will say No; she will not entertain
your views on poverty, little one."

Dorothy came behind Richard's chair and pressed her cheek to his.

"Whatever she may say, whatever anyone may say, you, and only you,
dearest, shall have me," and Dorothy signed the promise after the
fashion popular with lovers.

Storri came that evening to see Mrs. Hanway-Harley. Both parties were
acting, Storri affecting melancholy while he was on fire with passionate
rage, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley assuming the role of the mother who,
although she regrets, is still tenderly unwilling to control those
wrongly headstrong courses upon which her child is bent. There was a
world of polite fencing between Mrs. Hanway-Harley and Storri, in which
each bore testimony to the esteem in which the other was