thus lamely libelling his
forefather, he was horrified to observe that she had already recoiled
some feet away from him, and seemed still to be in the act of recoiling.

"It would have been kinder to tell me at once that I had asked too
much!" she exclaimed in a voice affected by several emotions. "I only
wanted to hear you repeat his death-cry as his foes slew him, so that it
might always seem more real to me. And you snub me like this!"

The Baron threw himself upon one knee.

"Forgive me! I did jost lose mine head mit your eyes looking so at me! I
get confused, you are so lovely! I did not mean to snob!"

In the ardor of his penitence he discovered himself holding her hand;
she no longer seemed to be recoiling; and Heaven knows what might have
happened next if an ostentatious sound of whistling had not come to
their rescue.

"Bot you vill forgive?" he whispered, as they sprang up from their shady
seat.

"Ye-es," she answered, just as the serene glance of Count Bunker fell
humorously upon them.

"You seem to have been plucking flowers, Tulliwuddle," he observed.

"Flowers? Oh, no."

The Count glanced pointedly at his soiled knee.

"Indeed!" said he. "Don't I see traces of a flower-bed?"

"I think I should go in," murmured Eva, and she was gone before the
Count had time to frame a compensating speech.

His friend Tulliwuddle looked at him with marked displeasure, yet seemed
to find some difficulty in adequately expressing it.

"I do not care for vat you said," he remarked stiffly. "Nor for ze look
now on your face."

"Baron," said the Count imperturbably, "what did you tell me the Wraith
said to you--something about 'Beware of the ladies,' wasn't it?"

"You do not onderstand. Ze ghost" (he found some difficulty in
pronouncing the spirit's chosen name) "did soppose naturally zat I vas
ze real Lord Tollyvoddle, who is, as you have told me yourself, Bonker,
somezing of a fast fish. Ze varning vas to him obviously, so you should
not turn it upon me."

Bunker opened his eyes.

"A deuced ingenious argument," he commented. "It wouldn't have occurred
to me if you hadn't explained. Then you claim the privilege of wooing
whom you wish?"

"Wooing! You forget zat I am married, Bonker."

"Oh no, I remember perfectly."

His tone disturbed the Baron. Taking the Count's arm, he said to him
with moving earnestness--

"Have I not told you how constant I am--like ze magnet and ze pole?"

"I have heard you em