to come after the colonel's
story. He excused them a little too much, and just gave the modest
soldier a faint, uneasy fear of having boasted. But no one else felt
this result of his delicacy, and the feast was merry enough. When it was
ended, Mrs. Ellison, being still a little infirm of foot, remained in
the shadow of the bark-lodge, and the colonel lit his cigar, and loyally
stretched himself upon the grass before her.

There was nothing else for Kitty and Mr. Arbuton but to stroll off
together, and she preferred to do this.

They sauntered up to the chateau in silence, and peered somewhat
languidly about the ruin. On a bit of smooth surface in a sheltered
place many names of former visitors were written, and Mr. Arbuton said
he supposed they might as well add those of their own party.

"O yes," answered Kitty, with a half-sigh, seating herself upon a fallen
stone, and letting her hands fall into each other in her lap as her wont
was, "you write them." A curious pensiveness passed from one to the
other and possessed them both.

Mr. Arbuton began to write. Suddenly, "Miss Ellison," said he, with a
smile, "I've blundered in your name; I neglected to put the Miss before
it; and now there isn't room on the plastering."

"O, never mind," replied Kitty, "I dare say it won't be missed!"

Mr. Arbuton neither perceived nor heeded the pun. He was looking in a
sort of rapture at the name which his own hand had written now for the
first time, and he felt an indecorous desire to kiss it.

"If I could speak it as I've written it--"

"I don't see what harm there would be in that," said the owner of the
name, "or what object," she added more discreetly.

--"I should feel that I had made a great gain."

"I never told you," answered Kitty, evasively, "how much I admire _your_
first name, Mr. Arbuton."

"How did you know it?"

"It was on the card you gave my cousin," said Kitty, frankly, but
thinking he now must know she had been keeping his card.

"It's an old family name,--a sort of heirloom from the first of us who
came to the country; and in every generation since, some Arbuton has had
to wear it."

"It's superb!" cried Kitty. "Miles! 'Miles Standish, the Puritan
captain,' 'Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth.' I should be very
proud of such a name."

"You have only to take it," he said, gravely.

"O, I didn't mean that," she said with a blush, and then added, "Yours
is a very old family, then, isn't it?"