manner, due to her
supposed flirtation with the Major.

The Colonel, too, who returned shortly afterwards, glanced round and
inquired for Fane.

"Gone, I think," said Cecil, innocently; and he also threw upon her a
look of gloom and reproach. No engaged young lady could be gayer than
Cecil the rest of the evening. She became the life of the party, would
keep everybody as late as possible: and certainly more than one shared
the opinion of Mrs. Rolleston, whom her daughter mischievously tried to
confirm in it, that the arbour had been the scene of a proposal and
acceptance.

As the elder lady was slowly undressing that night, Cecil, still with the
same provoking brightness on her face, peeped in.

"Are you sleepy, mamma?"

There was something in her manner that brought Mrs. Rolleston's
annoyance to the culminating point. She thought the faithless damsel had
come to announce her engagement, and demand sympathy and congratulations.
So, with a view to arrest any aggressive gush, she said, with some
asperity,--"I am glad you have come, for I wanted to tell you, Cecil,
how bad it looked your walking off in that way with Major Fane."

"I suppose it was rather strong," said the girl coolly; "but I like him
so much. I had no idea he was so nice."

Mrs. Rolleston took refuge in the ill-assumed dignity of rising anger.

"I suppose, mamma, he is very well off? Papa often wonders that he goes
soldiering on."

"Really, Cecil, whatever your speculations may be, it was not a delicate
act, sitting apart with him for half-an-hour in a dark arbour."

"I thought he might propose,"--Mrs. Rolleston's face expressed, "Are you
mad?"--"or give me a chance somehow of saying what I wanted to. And
what's more," she continued, "I am not certain whether he meant to, or
not. To be sure, I didn't give him much time."

"Did _you_, propose, then? Cecil, if you don't wish me to disbelieve my
own senses, tell me at once what you were about in the summer-house."

"Refusing eight thousand a year," was the short reply.

A puzzled, not unpleased expression, was dawning. "I thought you said he
did not propose?"

"Well, no; honestly, he didn't. We had a little conversation, and the
upshot was, he has promised to go to England for six months."

Mrs. Rolleston was not a proud woman, and the relief was so great, that
she folded Cecil in a silent embrace.

"Perhaps, mamma," continued the girl, demurely, "you won't think it
necessary to mention th