"I have put two things before ye," said he, calmly. "It is the first time I have asked ye for a service, after having brought ye up as few lads have been brought up. If you think it is unfair of me to make a bargain about such things, I will tell ye frankly that I have more concern in that young thing left to herself than in any creature now living on earth; and I will be a friend to her as well as an old man can. I have asked our friends here to listen to what I had to say; they will tell ye whether I am unreasonable. I will leave ye to talk it over.” He went to the door. Then he turned for a moment to his hostess.

"I am going to see, ma'am, if Mary will go for a bit walk wi' me-down to the shore, or the like; but we will be back before the hour for denner."

CHAPTER XIX.

THE NEW SUITOR.

IT is only those who have lived with her for a number of years who can tell when a certain person becomes possessed with the demon of mischief, and allows sarcasm and malignant laughter and other unholy delights to run riot in her brain. The chief symptom is the assumption of an abnormal gravity, and a look of simple and confiding innocence that appears in the eyes. The eyes tell most of all. The dark pupils seem even clearer than is their wont, as if they would let you read them through and through; and there is a sympathetic appeal in them; the woman seems so anxious to be kind, and friendly, and considerate. And all the time-especially if it be a man who is hopelessly dumfoundered-she is revenging the many wrongs of her sex by covertly laughing at him and enjoying his discomfiture.

And no doubt the expression on How ard Smith's face, as he sat there in a bewildered silence, was ludicrous enough. He was inclined to laugh the thing away as a joke, but he knew that the Laird was not given to practical jokes. And yet and yet

"Do you really think he is serious?" he blurted out at length; and he spoke to this lady with the gentle innocent eyes.

"Oh, undoubtedly," she answered, with perfect gravity.

"Oh no; it is impossible!" he said, as if arguing with himself. "Why, my uncle, of all men in the world-and pretending it was serious. Of course people often do wish their sons or daughters to marry a particular person-for a sensible reason, to keep estates together, or to join the fortunes of a family; but this-no, no; this is a joke, or else he wants to drive me into giving that fellow a licking. And that, you know, is quite absurd; you might as well drag the Atlantic for a penknife."

"I am afraid your uncle is quite serious," said she, demurely.

"But it was to be left to you," he answered, quickly. "You were to say whether it was unreasonable. Surely you must see it is not reasonable. Neither the one thing nor the other is possible--"

Here the young man paused for a moment.

"Surely," he said, "my uncle can't mean, by putting these impossible things before me, to justify his leaving his property to somebody else? There was no need for any such excuse; I have no claim on him; he has a right to do what he pleases.

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"That has nothing to do with it," said Queen T-, promptly. Your uncle is quite resolved, I know, that you should have Denny-mains.”

"Yes-and a wife," responded the young man, with a somewhat wry smile. "Oh, but you know it is quite absurd; you will reason him out of it, won't you? He has such a high opinion of your judgment, I know."

The ingenious youth!

"Besides," said he, warmly, "do you think it very complimentary to your friend Miss Avon that any one should be asked to come and marry her?"

This was better; it was an artful thrust. But the bland sympathetic eyes only paid him a respectful attention.

"I know my uncle is pretty firm when he has got a notion into his head," said he, "and-and-no doubt he is quite right in thinking that the young lady has been badly treated, and that somebody should give the absconder a thrashing. All that is quite right; but why should I be made responsible for it? I can't do impossible things."

"Well, you see," said his sage adviser, with a highly matter-of-fact air, "your

uncle may not regard either the one thing or the other as impossible."

"But they are impossible," said he. "Then I am very sorry," said she, with great sweetness. "Because Denny-mains is really a beautiful place. And the house would lend itself splendidly to a thorough scheme of redecoration; the hall could be made perfectly lovely. I would have the wooden dado painted a dark bottle-green, and the wall over it a rich Pompeiian red -I don't believe the colors of a hall can be too bold if the tones are good in themselves. Pompeiian red is a capital background for pictures, too; and I like to see pictures in the hall; the gentlemen can look at them while they are waiting for their wives. Don't you think Indian matting makes a very nice, serviceable, sober-colored dado for a dining-room-so long as it does not drive your pictures too high on the wall?"

The fiendishness of this woman! Denny-mains was being withdrawn from him at this very moment, and she was bothering him with questions about its decoration. What did he think of Indian matting?

"Well," said he, "if I am to lose my chance of Denny-mains through this piece of absurdity, I can't help it."

"I beg your pardon," said she, most amiably; "but I don't think your uncle's proposal so very absurd. It is the commonest thing in the world for people to wish persons in whom they are interested to marry each other; and very often they succeed by merely getting the young people to meet, and so forth. You say yourself that it is reasonable in certain cases. Well, in this case, you probably don't know how great an interest your uncle takes in Miss Avon, and the affection that he has for her. It is quite remarkable. And he has been dwelling on this possibility of a match between you--of seeing you both settled at Denny-mains—until he almost regards it as already arranged. 'Put yourself in his place,' as Mr. Reade says. It seems to him the most natural thing in the world, and I am afraid he will consider you very ungrateful if you don't fall in with his plan.'

Deeper and deeper grew the shadow of perplexity on the young man's brow. At first he had seemed inclined to laugh the whole matter aside, but the gentle reasoning of this small person had a ghastly aspect of seriousness about it.

"Then his notion of my seeking out the man Smethurst and giving him a thrashing: you would justify that too?" he cried.

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"No, not quite," she answered, with a bit of a smile. That is a little absurd, I admit it is merely an ebullition of anger. He won't think any more of that in a day or two, I am certain. But the other -the other, I fear, is a fixed idea." At this point we heard some one calling outside:

"Miss Mary! I have been searching for ye everywhere; are ye coming for a walk down to the shore?"

Then a voice, apparently overhead at an open window:

"All right, Sir; I will be down in a moment."

Another second or two, and we hear some one singing on the stair, with a fine air of bravado:

"A strong sou'wester's blowing, Billy, can't you hear it roar now?'"

-the gay voice passes through the hall— "Lord help 'em, how I pities all un-"" -then the last phrase is heard outside"-folks on shore now!"

Queen Titania darts to the open window of the dining-room.

"Mary! Mary!" she calls. "Come here."

The next instant a pretty enough picture is framed by the lower half of the window, which is open. The background is a blaze of scarlet and yellow and green -a mixture of sunlight and red poppies and nasturtiums and glancing fuchsia leaves. Then this slight figure that has appeared is dark in shadow; but there is a soft reflected light from the front of the house, and that just shows you the smile on Mary Avon's face and the friendliness of her dark soft eyes.

"Oh, how do you do?" she says, reaching in her hand and shaking hands with him. There is not any timidity in her manner. No one has been whispering to her of the dark plots surrounding her.

Nor was Mr. Smith much embarrassed, though he did not show himself as grateful as a young man might have done for so frank and friendly a welcome.

"I scarcely thought you would have remembered me," said he, modestly. But at this moment Denny-mains interfered, and took the young lady by the arm, and

dragged her away. We heard their retreating footsteps on the gravel-walk.

"So you remember her?" says our hostess, to break the awkward silence.

"Oh yes, well enough," said he; and then he goes on to say, stammeringly, "Of course I-I have nothing to say against her "

"If you have," it is here interposed, as a wholesome warning, "you had better not mention it here. Ten thousand hornets' nests would be a fool compared to this house if you said anything in it against Mary Avon."

"On the contrary," says he, "I suppose she is a very nice girl indeed-very; I suppose there's no doubt of it. And if she has been robbed like that, I am very sorry for her; and I don't wonder my uncle should be interested in her, and concerned about her, and-and all that's quite right. But it is too bad-it is too bad-that one should be expected to-to ask her to be one's wife, and a sort of penalty hanging over your head, too. Why, it is enough to set anybody against the whole thing; I thought everybody knew that you can't get people to marry if you drive them to it-except in France, I suppose, where the whole business is arranged for you by your relatives. This isn't France; and I am quite sure Miss Avon would consider herself very unfairly treated if she thought she was being made part and parcel of any such arrangement. As for me-well, I am very grateful to my uncle for his long kindness to me; he has been kindness itself to me; and it is quite true, as he says, that he has asked for nothing in return. Well, what he asks now is just a trifle too much. I won't sell myself for any property. If he is really serious-if it is to be a compulsory marriage like that-Denny-mains can go. I shall be able to earn my own living somehow."

There was a chord struck in this brief, hesitating, but emphatic speech that went straight to his torturer's heart. A look of liking and approval sprang to her eyes. She would no longer worry him.

"Don't you think," said she, gently, "that you are taking the matter too seriously? Your uncle does not wish to force you into a marriage against your will; he knows nothing about Adelphi melodramas. What he asks is simple and natural enough. He is, as you see, very fond of Mary Avon; he would like

to see her well provided for; he would like to see you settled and established at Denny-mains. But he does not ask the impossible. If she does not agree, neither he nor you can help it. Don't you think it would be a very simple matter for you to remain with us for a time, pay her some ordinary friendly attention, and then show your uncle that the arrangement he would like does not recommend itself to either you or her? He asks no more than that; it is not much of a sacrifice."

There was no stammering about this lady's exposition of the case. Her head is not very big, but its perceptive powers are remarkable.

Then the young man's face brightened considerably.

"Well," said he, "that would be more sensible, surely. If you take away the threat, and the compulsion, and all that, there can be no harm in my being civil to a girl, especially when she is, I am sure, just the sort of girl one ought to be civil to. I am sure she has plenty of common-sense

It is here suggested once more that, in this house, negative praise of Mary Avon is likely to awake slumbering lions.

"Oh, I have no doubt," says he, readily, "that she is a very nice girl indeed. One would not have to pretend to be civil to some creature stuffed with affectation, or a ghoul. I don't object to that at all. If my uncle thinks that enough, very well. And I am quite sure that a girl you think so much of would have more self-respect than to expect anybody to go and make love to her in the country bumpkin style."

Artful again; but it was a bad shot. There was just a little asperity in madame's manner when she said:

But

"I beg you not to forget that Mary does not wish to be made love to by anybody. She is quite content as she is. Perhaps she has quite other views, which you would not regret, I am sure. don't imagine that she is looking for a husband, or that a husband is necessary for her, or that she won't find friends to look after her. It is your interests we are considering, not hers."

Was the snubbing sufficient?

"Oh, of course, of course," said he, quite humbly. "But then, you know, I was only thinking that-that if I am to go in and make believe about being

"AR

CENTURY.

with her two brothers and her father composed their household, and who were as obtuse in such matters as those of their sex generally are, no one surmised any cause beyond local fever.

They were seated upon the stone steps

The present summer had been very hot and debilitating, and although far advanced into September, there had been no cooling change in the temperature of the Southern city where they lived. She had passed her first youth, but the rose was as lovely as the bud had been. Not the mere beauty of coloring and feature, but the higher grace of symmetry, and the nameless charm that, lacking the proper expression, we call fascination. The full but slight limbs, the graceful fall of shoulders and arms, the setting of the spirited head upon the throat and neck, were correct, even classic. The eye became satisfied in looking, and when she spoke, the crowning charm of woman was hers-the slow, soft voice, sweet, low, and distinct. Her companion had been always her friend, and they had lived as neighbors from childhood. If at times a passing anger at attentions shown her by other men fretted him, a little sisterly soothing on her part, and the absence of apparent interest toward the aspirants, soon quelled the feeling.

long, dark conservatory, odorous with tropical plants, behind them. The house, an old discolored mass of bricks, monopolized the whole square, for it stood in the centre of a perfect wilderness of greenery. Tall forest trees grew there, straight magnolias towering above roof and chimney, feathery acacias with their yellow hair, dense fig-trees, all shading a wilderness of rose-bushes. Thick vines threw their embracing arms from bough to bough, dropping twisted loops of giant tendrils almost to the ground, and, softening the ruggedness of branch and bark, the tender gray moss clung around them, light almost as the mist of the Indian summer. Even at noonday there brooded shadow and mystery around the place. The old master had been opposed to all modern innovations, and the few flitting candles that hardly supply the need of gas made the spacious rooms seem larger, and the high walls higher. Only familiarity with these gloomy surroundings from early childhood could have rendered the pair indifferent to the dreariness of the place. They may still have had their influence, for the conversation often insensibly took, as it did this night, a mysterious tone.

The

Once there had arisen a coldness-a fancy on her side, an estrangement on his but the object was dead, and how deeply she had suffered she alone knew. None questioned, and she gave no sign, save in shrinking from all mention of a name, and an avoidance of aught that could recall a memory. At the time a long and wasting illness had prostrated her, but the physician suggested a malarious atmosphere, and as she had no female relative

stephanotis flowers dropped mutely from the vine above her head, and fell like stars about her dark hair, as the soft south wind shook them from their loose stems. Her mind was evidently much occupied with thoughts apart from her surroundings, for her answers were very unsatisfactory to his lively attempts to amuse and interest her. They were alone, the father and brothers having joined a hunting party early in the spring, whom they had met marooning on one of the sea islands, waiting for their annual sport. Except her old grandmother and an intelligent woman, partly companion and partly nurse, there had been no one living in the house with her since they left.