more than fair she is! how in his absence he has misjudged her
beauty! or is it that she grows in excellence day by day? Not in all
his lover's silent raptures has he imagined her half as lovely as she
now appears standing before him, her hands clasped in his, her face
flushed with unmistakable joy at seeing him again.

"Darling, darling!" he says, with such earnest delight in his tones
that she returns one of his many kisses, out of sheer sympathy. For
though glad as she is to welcome him as a sure ally at Herst, she
hardly feels the same longing for the embrace that he (with his heart
full of her alone) naturally does.

"You look as if you were going to tell me I have grown tall," she says,
amused at his prolonged examination of her features. "John always does,
when he returns from London, with the wild hope of keeping me down.
Have I?"

"How can I tell? I have not taken my eyes from your face yet."

"Silly boy, and I have seen all the disimprovements in you long ago. I
have also seen that you are wearing an entirely new suit of clothes.
Such reckless extravagance! but they are very becoming, and I am fond
of light gray, so you are forgiven. Why did you not come sooner? I have
been _longing_ for you. Oh, Teddy, I don't like Marcia or
grandpapa a bit; and Philip has been absent nearly all the time; you
said you would come early."

"So I did, by the earliest train; you could hardly have left the house
when I arrived, and then I started instantly to find you. My own dear
darling," with a sigh of content, "how good it is to see you again, and
how well you are looking!"

"Am I?" laughing. "So are you, disgracefully well. You haven't a
particle of feeling, or you would be emaciated by this time. Now
confess you did not miss me at all."

"Were I to speak forever, I could not tell you how much. Are you not
'the very eyes of me'?" says the young man, fondly.

"That is a very nonsensical quotation," says Molly, gayly. "Were you to
see with my eyes, just consider how different everything would appear.
Now, for instance, _I_ would never have so far forgotten myself as
to fall so idiotically and ridiculously in love, as you did, with
beautiful Molly Massereene!"

At this little touch of impertinence they both laugh merrily. After
which, with some hesitation, and a rather heightened color, Tedcastle
draws a case from his pocket, and presents it to her.

"I brought you a--a present," he says, "because I know you are fond