sary?
Then God give me the heavy end, and may the mutual bearing of it bind
us together. Ah, those dear hands! Ah, those true steadfast eyes! ...
Jane!--Jane! Surely it has always been Jane, though I did not know it,
blind fool that I have been! But one thing I know: whereas I was blind,
now I see. And it will always be Jane from this night onward through
time and-please God--into eternity."

The night breeze stirred his thick dark hair, and his eyes, as he
raised them, shone in the starlight.

* * * * *

And Jane, almost asleep, was roused by the tapping of her blind against
the casement, and murmured "Anything you wish, Garth, just tell me, and
I will do it." Then awakening suddenly to the consciousness of what she
had said, she sat up in the darkness and scolded herself furiously.
"Oh, you middle-aged donkey! You call yourself staid and sensible, and
a little flattery from a boy of whom you are fond turns your head
completely. Come to your senses at once; or leave Overdene by the first
train in the morning."

CHAPTER VIII

ADDED PEARLS

The days which followed were golden days to Jane. There was nothing to
spoil the enjoyment of a very new and strangely sweet experience.

Garth's manner the next morning held none of the excitement or outward
demonstration which had perplexed and troubled her the evening before.
He was very quiet, and seemed to Jane older than she had ever known
him. He had very few lapses into his seven-year-old mood, even with the
duchess; and when someone chaffingly asked him whether he was
practising the correct deportment of a soon-to-be-married man,

"Yes," said Garth quietly, "I am."

"Will she be at Shenstone?" inquired Ronald; for several of the
duchess's party were due at Lady Ingleby's for the following week-end.

"Yes," said Garth, "she will."

"Oh, lor'!" cried Billy, dramatically. "Prithee, Benedict, are we to
take this seriously?"

But Jane who, wrapped in the morning paper, sat near where Garth was
standing, came out from behind it to look up at him and say, so that
only he heard it "Oh, Dal, I am so glad! Did you make up your mind last
night?"

"Yes," said Garth, turning so that he spoke to her alone, "last night."

"Did our talk in the afternoon have something to do with it?"

"No, nothing whatever."

"Was it THE ROSARY?"

He hesitated; then said, without looking at her: "The revelation of THE
ROSARY? Yes."

To Jane his mood