n thinks now, but I sometimes doubt whether
he would not have been wiser to shake off the detaining hand and pursue
his lonely way, first into the house, and ultimately to his aunt's. But
(to say nothing of the twenty thousand a year, which, after all, and
lie you as romantic as you may please to be, is not a thing to be
sneezed at) Trix's face, its mingled eagerness and shame, its flushed
cheeks and shining eyes, the piquancy of its unwonted humility,
overcame him. He stopped dead.

"I--I was obliged to give him an--an opportunity," said Miss Trix,
having the grace to stumble a little in her speech. "And--and it's all
your fault."

The war was thus, by happy audacity, carried into Newhaven's own
quarters.

"My fault!" he exclaimed. "My fault that you walk all day with that
curate!"

Then Miss Trix--and let no irrelevant considerations mar the
appreciation of line acting--dropped her eyes and murmured softly,
"I--I was so terribly afraid of seeming to expect you."

Wherewith she (and not he) ran away, lightly, up the stairs, turning
just one glance downwards as she reached the landing. Newhaven was
looking up from below with an 'enchanted' smile--the word is Trix's
own: I should probably have used a different one.

Was then the curate of Poltons utterly defeated--brought to his knees,
only to lie spurned? It seemed so: and he came down to dinner that
night with a subdued and melancholy expression. Trix, on the other
hand, was brilliant and talkative to the last degree, and the gayety
spread from her all round the table, leaving untouched only the
rejected lover and Mrs. Wentworth; for the last-named lady, true to her
distinguishing quality, had begun to talk to poor Jack Ives in low
soothing tones.

After dinner Trix was not visible; but the door of the little boudoir
beyond stood half-open, and very soon Newhaven edged his way through.
Almost at the same moment Jack Ives and Mrs. Wentworth passed out of
the window and began to walk up and down the gravel. Nobody but myself
appeared to notice these remarkable occurrences, but I watched them
with keen interest. Half an hour passed and then there smote on my
watchful ear the sound of a low laugh from the boudoir. It was followed
almost immediately by a stranger sound from the gravel walk. Then, all
in a moment, two things happened. The boudoir door opened, and Trix,
followed by Newhaven, came in smiling; from the window entered Jack
Ives and Mrs. Wentworth. My