gates closer together, so that now they would not yield quite
so easily to the soft pressure of a woman's hand.

"What is it, Luke?" she asked very quietly, as soon as her fingers
rested safely between his.

"What is what?" he rejoined foolishly and speaking like a child, and
with a forced, almost inane-looking, smile on his lips.

"What has happened?" she reiterated more impatiently.

"Nothing," he replied, "that need worry you, I think. Shall we sit
down here? You won't catch cold?" and he indicated a seat well
sheltered against the cold breeze and the impertinent gaze of the
passers-by.

"I never catch cold," said Louisa, smiling in spite of herself at
Luke's funny, awkward ways. "But we won't sit down. Let us stroll up
and down, shall we? You can talk better then, and tell me all about
it."

"There's not much to tell at present. And no occasion to worry."

"There's nothing that worries me so much as your shilly-shallying,
Luke, or the thought that you are making futile endeavours to keep
something from me," she retorted almost irritably this time, for,
strangely enough, her nerves--she never knew before this that she had
any--were slightly on the jar this morning.

"I don't want to shilly-shally, little girl," he replied gently, "nor
to keep anything from you. There, will you put your hand on my arm?
'Arry and 'Arriet, eh? Well! never mind. There's no one to see."

He took her hand--that neatly gloved, small hand of hers--and put it
under his arm. For one moment it seemed as if he would kiss that tiny
and tantalizing place just below the thumb where the pink palm shows
in the opening of the glove. Luke was not a demonstrative lover, he
was shy and English and abrupt; but this morning--was it the breath of
spring in the air, the scent of the Roman hyacinths in that bed over
there, or merely the shadow of a tiny cloud on the uniform blue of his
life's horizon that gave a certain rugged softness to his touch, as
his hand lingered over that neat glove which nestled securely in among
the folds of his coat sleeve?

"Now," she said simply.

"Have you," he asked with abrupt irrelevance, "read your paper all
through this morning?"

"Not all through. Only the important headlines."

"And you saw nothing about a claim to a peerage?"

"Nothing."

"Well! that's all about it. A man has sprung up from nowhere in
particular, who claims to be my uncle Arthur's son, and, therefore,
heir presumptive to the title an