"Oh, if you could only keep it to yourself, I should like to tell you how I trust and admire and reverence Ronald Macdonald, but of course you will repeat everything to Willie Beresford within the hour! You think he has gone on and on loving me against his better judgment.

You believe he has fought against it because of my unfitness, but that I, poor, weak, trivial thing, am not capable of deep feeling and that I shall never appreciate the sacrifices he makes in choosing me! Very well, then, I tell you plainly that if I had to live in a damp manse the rest of my life, drink tea and eat scones for breakfast, and--and buy my hats of the Inchcaldy milliner, I should still glory in the possibility of being Ronald Macdonald's wife--a possibility hourly growing more uncertain, I am sorry to say!" "And the extreme aversion with which you began," I asked--"what has become of that, and when did it begin to turn in the opposite direction ?" "Aversion!" she cried, with convincing and unblushing candour.

"That aversion was a cover, clapped on to keep my self-respect warm.

I abused him a good deal, it is true, because it was so delightful to hear you and Salemina take his part.

Sometimes I trembled for fear you would agree with me, but you never did.