deny herself
to him.

"Ah! How good of you!" says he as she enters, meeting her with both
hands outstretched. "I feared the visit was too early! A very _betise_
on my part--but you are the soul of kindness always."

"Early!" says Joyce, with a little laugh. "Why you might have found me
chasing the children round the garden three hours ago. Providentially,"
giving him one hand, the ordinary one, and ignoring his other, "their
father and mother were bound to go to Tisdown this morning or I should
have been dead long before this."

"Ah!" says Beauclerk. And then with increasing tenderness. "So glad they
were removed; it would have been too much for you, wouldn't it?"

"Yes--I dare say--on the whole, I believe I don't mind them," says Miss
Kavanagh. "Well--and what about last night? It was delightful, wasn't
it?" Secretly she sighs heavily, as she makes this most untruthful
assertion.

"Ah! Was it?" asks he. "I did not find it so. How could I when you were
so unkind to me?"

"I! Oh, no. Oh, surely not!" says she anxiously. There is no touch of
the coquetry that might be about this answer had it been given to a man
better liked. A slow soft color has crept into her cheeks, born of the
knowledge that she had got out of several dances with him. But he,
seeing it, gives it another, a more flattering meaning to his own self
love.

"Can you deny it?" asks he, changing his seat so as to get nearer to
her. "Joyce!" He leans toward her. "May I speak at last? Last night I
was foiled in my purpose. It is difficult to say all that is in one's
heart at a public affair of that kind, but now--now----"

Miss Kavanagh has sprung to her feet.

"No! Don't, don't!" she says earnestly. "I tell you--I beg you--I warn
you----" She pauses, as if not knowing what else to say, and raises her
pretty hands as if to enforce her words.

"Shy, delightfully shy!" says Beauclerk to himself. He goes quickly up
to her with all the noble air of the conqueror, and seizing one of her
trembling hands holds it in his own.

"Hear me!" he says with an amused toleration for her girlish _mauvaise
honte_. "It is only such a little thing I have to say to you, but yet it
means a great deal to me--and to you, I hope. I love you, Joyce. I have
come here to-day to ask you to be my wife."

"I told you not to speak," says she. She has grown very white now. "I
warned you! It is no use--no use, indeed."

"I have startled you," says Beauclerk, still disbelievi