No," returns Luttrell, valiantly, refusing by a supreme effort to
allow himself to be tempted by a look at her beauty, "I will not kiss
you so. Why should you be made unhappy, and by me? Keep such gifts,
Molly, until you can bestow them of your own free will."

But Molly is determined to be generous.

"See, I will give you this one freely," she says, with unwonted
sweetness, knowing that she is gaining more than she is giving; and
thus persuaded, he presses his lips to the warm tender ones so near his
own, while for one mad moment he is absurdly happy.

"You really do love me?" asks Molly, presently, as though just
awakening to the fact.

"My darling!--my angel!" whispers he, which is conclusive; because when
a man can honestly bring himself to believe a woman an angel he must be
very far gone indeed.

"I fancy we ought to go in," says Molly, a little later; "they will be
wondering where we are."

"They cannot have missed us yet; it is too soon."

"Soon! Why, it must be hours since we came out here," says Molly, with
uplifted brows.

"Have you found it so very long?" asks he, aggrieved.

"No,"--resenting his tone in a degree,--"I have not been bored to
death, if you mean that; but I am not so dead to the outer world that I
cannot tell whether time has been short or long. And it _is_
long," viciously.

"At that rate, I think we had better go in," replies he, somewhat
stiffly.

As they draw near the house, so near that the lights from the open
drawing-room windows make yellow paths across the grass that runs their
points almost to their feet,--Luttrell stops short to say:

"Shall I speak to John to-night or to-morrow morning?"

"Oh! neither to-night nor to-morrow," cries Molly, frightened. "Not for
ever so long. Why talk about it at all? Only a few minutes ago nothing
was farther from my thoughts, and now you would publish it on the
house-tops! Just think what it will be to have every one wondering and
whispering about one, and saying, 'Now they have had a quarrel,' and
'Now they have made it up again.' Or, 'See now she is flirting with
somebody else.' I could not bear it," says Molly, blind to the growing
anger on the young man's face as he listens to and fully takes in the
suggestions contained in these imaginary speeches; "it would make me
wretched. It might make me hate you!"

"Molly!"

"Yes, it might; and then what would you do? Let us keep it a secret,"
says Molly, coaxingly, slipping her hand in