o a word he had said that night and
was utterly unconscious of what I had promised. Even his self-appreciation
did not deserve such a blow as that, so I softened my voice and natural
anger at his words, and said, quite gently:

"Do not be angry. If I have unconsciously given you a wrong impression I
am sorry, but if one came to talking of deceiving, you have deceived me
about Miss Grey, so do not let us speak further upon the matter. We are
quits. Now, won't you be friends as you have always been?" and I put out
my hand and smiled frankly in his face. The mean little lines in it
relaxed, he pulled himself together, and took my hand and pressed it
warmly. From which I knew there was more in the affair of Angela Grey than
met the eye.

"Evangeline," he said. "I shall always love you; but Miss Grey is an
estimable young woman--there is not a word to be said against her moral
character--and I have promised her my hand in marriage, so perhaps we had
better say good-bye."

"Good-bye," I said; "but I consider I have every reason to feel insulted
by your offer, which was not, judging from your subsequent remarks, worth
a moment's thought."

"Oh, but I love you!" he said, and by his face, for the time, this was
probably true. So I did not say any more, and we rose and joined the
bridge players. And I contrived that he should not speak to me again alone
before he said good-night.

"Did Malcolm propose to you?" Lady Ver asked as we came up to bed. "I
thought I saw a look in his eye at dinner."

I told her he had done it in a kind of a way, with a reservation in favor
of Miss Angela Grey.

"That is too dreadful!" she said. "There is a regular epidemic in some of
the Guards regiments just now to marry these poor, common things with high
moral characters and indifferent feet. But I should have thought the
cuteness of the Scot would have protected Malcolm from their designs. Poor
Aunt Katherine!"

CLARIDGE'S,

Saturday, _November 26th._

Lady Ver went off early to the station to catch her train to
Northumberland this morning, and I hardly saw her to say good-bye. She
seemed out of temper, too, on getting a note--she did not tell me who it
was from or what it was about, only she said immediately after that I was
not to be stupid. "Do not play with Christopher further," she said, "or
you will lose him. He will