t I count on."

"Don't be dreadful," Julia said. "It would be loathsome if I were
thought the cleverest. That's not the sort of man I want to marry."

"Oh I shall make you work, my dear!"

"Ah _that_----!" she sounded in a tone that might come back to a man
after years.

"You'll do the great thing, you'll make my life the best life," Nick
brought out as if he had been touched to deep conviction. "I daresay
that will keep me in heart."

"In heart? Why shouldn't you be in heart?" And her eyes, lingering on
him, searching him, seemed to question him still more than her lips.

"Oh it will be all right!" he made answer.

"You'll like success as well as any one else. Don't tell me--you're not
so ethereal!"

"Yes, I shall like success."

"So shall I! And of course I'm glad you'll now be able to do things,"
Julia went on. "I'm glad you'll have things. I'm glad I'm not poor."

"Ah don't speak of that," Nick murmured. "Only be nice to my mother. We
shall make her supremely happy."

"It wouldn't be for your mother I'd do it--yet I'm glad I like your
people," Mrs. Dallow rectified. "Leave them to me!"

"You're generous--you're noble," he stammered.

"Your mother must live at Broadwood; she must have it for life. It's not
at all bad."

"Ah Julia," her companion replied, "it's well I love you!"

"Why shouldn't you?" she laughed; and after this no more was said
between them till the boat touched shore. When she had got out she
recalled that it was time for luncheon; but they took no action in
consequence, strolling in a direction which was not that of the house.
There was a vista that drew them on, a grassy path skirting the
foundations of scattered beeches and leading to a stile from which the
charmed wanderer might drop into another division of Mrs. Dallow's
property. She said something about their going as far as the stile, then
the next instant exclaimed: "How stupid of you--you've forgotten Mr.
Hoppus!"

Nick wondered. "We left him in the temple of Vesta. Darling, I had other
things to think of there."

"I'll send for him," said Julia.

"Lord, can you think of him now?" he asked.

"Of course I can--more than ever."

"Shall we go back for him?"--and he pulled up.

She made no direct answer, but continued to walk, saying they would go
as far as the stile. "Of course I know you're fearfully vague," she
presently resumed.

"I wasn't vague at all. But you were in such a hurry to get away."

"It doesn't s