allies
forth savagely, bent on slaying aught that comes in his way. As two
crows, a dejected rabbit, and an intelligent squirrel are all that
present themselves to his notice, he wearies toward three o'clock, and
thinks with affection of home. For so far has his air-castle mounted
that, were Molly to inhabit a hovel, that hovel to him would be home.

Crossing a stile and a high wall, he finds himself in the middle of the
grounds that adjoin the more modest Brooklyn. The shimmer of a small
lake makes itself seen through the branches to his right, and as he
gains its bank a boat shoots forth from behind the willows, and a gay
voice sings:

"There was a little man,
And he had a little gun,
And his bullets they were made of lead, lead, lead;
He went to a brook,
And he saw a little----"

"Oh, Mr. Luttrell, please, please don't shoot _me_," cries Molly,
breaking down in the song with an exaggerated show of feigned terror.

"Do _you_ call yourself a 'duck'?" demands Luttrell, with much
scorn. "Is there any limit to a woman's conceit? Duck, indeed! say
rather----"

"Swan? Well, yes, I will, if you wish it: I don't mind," says Molly,
amiably. "And now tell me, are you not surprised to see me here?"

"I am, indeed. Are you ubiquitous? I thought I left you safe at home."

"So you did. But I never counted on your staying so long away. I was
tired of waiting for you. I thought you would _never_ come. So in
despair I came out here by myself."

"So you absolutely missed me?" says Luttrell, quietly, although his
heart is beating rapidly. Too well he knows her words are from the lips
alone.

"Oh, didn't I!" exclaims she, heartily. "You should have seen me
standing at the gate peering up and down for you and bemoaning my fate,
like that silly Mariana in the moated grange. Indeed, if I had been
photographed then and there and named 'Forsaken,' I'm positive I would
have sold well."

"I don't doubt it."

"Then I grew enraged, and determined to trouble my head no more about
you; and then---- It was lucky I came here, wasn't it?"

"Very lucky,--for me. But you never told me you had a boat on the
lake."

"Because I hadn't,--at least not for the last two months,--until
yesterday. It got broken in the spring, and they have been ever since
mending it. They are so slow down here. I kept the news of its return
from you a secret all yesterday, meaning to bring you here and show i