"Yes, indeed," said the girl, impressively. "Of course."

"It is extremely good of you to say it like that!" and his face flushed.

"Is it?" She glanced up at him for the moment, then caught his flush on her own cheek, which dyed itself crimson.

He could then and there have proposed to her and settled it, but he was under promise to his uncle and aunt, who had urgently besought him to wait.

They did not get on with Bridget. Mrs. Purcell was frankly irritated with her, and Mr. Purcell thought more than he said, and spent some of his early morning vigils in praying for the "lad." He perceived that this thing had gone deep, and he groaned in spirit.

"Only in the Lord, only in the Lord!" he pleaded. "But, uncle, you do believe in love at first sight. You have told me so often!"

"I know. Yet the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair," he said, solemnly.

"But I have never had the smallest doubt! I don't say that she has been brought up like I have, but I know my highest wishes would be hers! Of that I am sure! And, uncle, think how you like her brother!"

"You are not proposing to marry the brother, Francis," said his uncle.

Yet so strong an influence had the older man, that when Bridget asked the little question "Is it?" at parting, all Francis Purcell was able to reply

was:

"Yes, indeed, it is! And I shall take care to remember!"

"It is very good of you!" said the girl, conventionally, and she held out her soft white hand calmly.

But when he had gone, she rushed to her room, locked the door upon herself and her own heart.

and

"Oh-oh!" she gasped, as if she were in intense bodily agony.

She rushed to the window with a vague feeling that even yet she might catch sight of that strong figure. But no. All was quiet. A few autumn tints were creeping along the tops of the trees, and a group of sparrows were chattering under the eaves.

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He-he is good!" she moaned. "I am not fit for him. I know that! If he asked me-I have no right to accept him. He does not know that I have been deceiving him from the beginning until now! He has believed every word. He thinks I am good and true and sweet-like Réné!”

She covered her face with her hands in her lonely humiliation. Then she raised her head.

"Yet I can-I will keep it up! I must! It is my life. I love him-love him-and he shall never knowme!"

Then she took a book to calm herself, and presently went down-stairs to wrangle with her mother for the remainder of the evening.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE gardens were heavy with moisture, and the birds had been busy for hours among the succulent worms, and sticky slugs and sleepy moths, busily attending to their own family business, regardless of the glories of the day before them.

Yet it was still deliciously early, and Réné stood for a moment or two on the terrace walk, looking over the morning beauty, ere he hurried off to greet Joan on her birthday-to claim her as his acknowledged bride.

Only for an instant did he note the young green world, the rain-glistening hedges, the sleepy daisies still hiding under their own pink finger-tips.

Then he bounded down the steps, and wound his way in and out among the gnarled trunks of a fruit orchard, now bending his head to avoid a bough, now stepping aside from the lush grass, while above him, delicate greens and pearly whites, rosy pinks and deep reds had broken forth from the hard old wood to decorate the tender misty blue of the morning sky.

Presently he entered the road leading through the

woods.

Everywhere the trees had been thinned, and the boughs of willow and hazel were lying in heaps where the foresters had left them, while the red pine trunks, already barked, lay stretched out at length, to be scrambled over by the eager green world, while fantastically shaped rocks reared themselves up among the

brambles and ferns and creeping ivies, and far as eye could pierce between the larger oaks, birches, elms, and firs, hung the deep blue of the hyacinth, with patches of delicate primrose lemon.

Réné hurried for nearly a mile through the wood, enjoying its spiritualized earthly beauty. Then he crossed a rocky field, showing richer tints of cowslip yellow, purple orchises, and golden gorse, and so out into the road wet with last night's rain, where the lords and ladies showed their little brown tongues, and stars of Bethlehem and dog violets and ragged robins displayed themselves in the tangled hedgerow.

The season was very early, and Réné noted with something like exultation the beauty and fragrance surrounding this pathway to his love, and as he turned down to the mosses he gave a lingering look backward at the White Scar, which had also decided to be gracious, and to allow the greens and ambers and crabapple blossoms to deck its stormy bosom.

And Réné rejoicingly realized that this cool morning peace and the subdued moist light of the atmosphere foretold a perfect day.

All the district was exciting itself over the coming festivities. The Hall was crowded with visitors. Invitations had been sent to high and low. There were to be games for the children, sports for the men, bands, and dancing and illuminations-in fact Langbarrow had never conceived such excitement as coming within its borders.

"Grand doin's," so all had decided, and if the wealth and lavishness of the hostess and the popularity of the chief actors could insure success, success was insured.

It was characteristic that in spite of every effort on Mrs. Simon's part to limit the honors of the celebra

tion to her son, the day was invariably spoken of by the people as "T' li'le twins' birthday."

They had always made festival of their birthdays together. It was impossible to separate them now.

Réné had had a battle with his mother and come off victorious. She had threatened and pleaded, and waxed sarcastic, and played the injured parent, all to no pur

pose.

At the exact moment when Mrs. de Renegil perceived she had lost her cause, she surrendered gracefully and rose to the occasion.

So when Réné quietly insisted that all his part in the festivities depended on the full cordial acknowledgment of Joan as his affianced wife, Mrs. de Renegil gave in.

So this morning he was joyful indeed. Ever since the days when Réné had learned choice methods of escape, he had run away to give Joan her birthday posy, and to-day of all days he did not intend to miss the joy. He gathered a spray or two of hyacinths, with a little greenery, and stuck them in his coat.

And Joan, rising early also, was awed to find that a new strange shyness was creeping over her.

Réné would come. He had never said so. But she

knew.

She watched from a small side window down the Syke Lane, and across toward the White Scar End.

Twice she rearranged her scarf, and at last she noticed the tall figure striding along in the distance.

For once a wave of color surged over her. She deliberately looked in the glass, gave herself a little shake, and laughed.

She ran down-stairs and out across the garden, over the moist turf, toward the rocky headland.