s done much the same. You know that he loves you."

"I know,--or fancy that I know,--that so many men love me! But, after
all, what sort of love is it? It is just as when you and I, when we
see something nice in a shop, call it a dear duck of a thing, and
tell somebody to go and buy it, let the price be ever so extravagant.
I know my own position, Laura. I'm a dear duck of a thing."

"You are a very dear thing to Oswald."

"But you, Laura, will some day inspire a grand passion,--or I daresay
have already, for you are a great deal too close to tell;--and then
there will be cutting of throats, and a mighty hubbub, and a real
tragedy. I shall never go beyond genteel comedy,--unless I run away
with somebody beneath me, or do something awfully improper."

"Don't do that, dear."

"I should like to, because of my aunt. I should indeed. If it were
possible, without compromising myself, I should like her to be told
some morning that I had gone off with the curate."

"How can you be so wicked, Violet!"

"It would serve her right, and her countenance would be so awfully
comic. Mind, if it is ever to come off, I must be there to see it. I
know what she would say as well as possible. She would turn to poor
Gussy. 'Augusta,' she would say, 'I always expected it. I always
did.' Then I should come out and curtsey to her, and say so prettily,
'Dear aunt, it was only our little joke.' That's my line. But for
you,--you, if you planned it, would go off to-morrow with Lucifer
himself if you liked him."

"But failing Lucifer, I shall probably be very humdrum."

"You don't mean that there is anything settled, Laura?"

"There is nothing settled,--or any beginning of anything that ever
can be settled, But I am not talking about myself. He has told me
that if you will accept him, he will do anything that you and I may
ask him."

"Yes;--he will promise."

"Did you ever know him to break his word?"

"I know nothing about him, my dear. How should I?"

"Do not pretend to be ignorant and meek, Violet. You do know
him,--much better than most girls know the men they marry. You have
known him, more or less intimately, all your life."

"But am I bound to marry him because of that accident?"

"No; you are not bound to marry him,--unless you love him."

"I do not love him," said Violet, with slow, emphatic words, and a
little forward motion of her face, as though she were specially eager
to convince her friend that she was quite in ear