lvios on their Derby days.

Just now it is neither night nor garish day, but a soft, early
twilight, and on the sward that glows as green as Erin's, sit Molly and
her attendant slave.

"The reason I like you," says Molly, reverting to something that has
gone before, and tilting back her hat so that all her pretty face is
laid bare to the envious sunshine, while the soft rippling locks on her
forehead make advances to each other through the breeze, "the reason I
like you,--no,"--seeing a tendency on his part to creep nearer, "no,
stay where you are. I only said I liked you. If I had mentioned the
word love, then indeed--but, as it is, it is far too warm to admit of
any endearments."

"You are right,--as you always are," says Luttrell, with suspicious
amiability, being piqued.

"You interrupted me," says Miss Massereene, leaning back comfortably
and raising her exquisite eyes in lazy admiration of the green and
leafy tangle far above her. "I was going to say that the reason I like
you so much is because you look so young, quite as young as I do,--more
so, indeed, I think."

"It is a poor case," says Luttrell, "when a girl of nineteen looks
older than a man of twenty-seven."

"That is not the way to put it. It is a charming and novel case when a
man of twenty-seven looks younger than a girl of nineteen."

"How much younger?" asks Luttrell, who is still sufficiently youthful
to have a hankering after mature age. "Am I fourteen or nine years old
in your estimation?"

"Don't let us dispute the point," says Molly, "and don't get cross. I
see you are on for a hot argument, and I never could follow even a mild
one. I think you young, and you should be glad of it, as it is the one
good thing I see about you. As a rule I prefer dark men,--but for their
unhappy knack of looking old from their cradles,--and have a perfect
passion for black eyes, black skin, black locks, and a general
appearance of fierceness! Indeed, I have always thought, up to this,
that there was something about a fair man almost ridiculous. Have not
you?"

Here she brings her eyes back to the earth again, and fastens them upon
him with the most engaging frankness.

"No. I confess it never occurred to me before," returns Luttrell,
coloring slightly through his Saxon skin.

Silence. If there is any silent moment in the throbbing summer. Above
them the faint music of the leaves, below the breathing of the flowers,
the hum of insects. All the air is f