I believed that the first evening I saw you." "A womanish thing to say--I didn't know it myself." But she laughed to me, laughed still as I brought her face nearer--so near.

Only then did her parted lips close tensely in the woman fear of what she read in my eyes.

I have reason to believe that she would have mastered this fear, but at that instant Miss Caroline coughed rather alarmingly.
"You should do something for that right away," I said, as we struck ourselves apart.

"You let a cough like that run along and you don't know what it may end in." Whereupon, having kissed no one on this occasion, I now kissed Miss Caroline,--without difficulty, I may add.
"I've been meaning to do it for a year," I explained.
"I must remind you that they were far less deliberate in _my_ day," said she, with a delicate hint of reminiscence in her tone.

Whereupon she looked searchingly at each of us in turn.