"Very lovely?"

"_Very_ lovely."

"I never before was so struck with the truths of heredity," mused the young man. "You are exactly like him."

"_Oh_!" the girl dropped her face in her hands a moment, and then thrust them out with the palms toward her guest. "You have need to beg a thousand pardons and a thousand more to cover the offences you have committed. And you have broken your promise!"

"What a harsh accusation! I promised not to come to the verge of a compliment. Do you think that was on the verge?"

"No! It was too blunt--too dreadfully--"

"It is a pleasure to hear you so emphatically contradict an a.s.sertion made by yourself."

"That is a mere quibble--a legal quibble. Well, there is no doubt that you would make a very successful lawyer."

"Is that a compliment, or does it approach the verge of one?"

Before this problem could be solved Herbert, who was deeply engaged in a game of checkers with his younger sister, at the other end of the apartment, suddenly announced: "Rose, here is Mr. Galton coming across the street, making directly for our house."

"Oh, dear!" was the very inhospitable exclamation of its pretty mistress. Then as she caught an amused glance from Allan's eyes, she added demurely, "I am so glad."

"Perhaps it would be better for me to go." The words escaped with obvious reluctance.

"Better for which of us?"

"For both, I think."

"Your charities are conducted on too large a scale. Now, if you could only content yourself with benefiting _one_ of us you would remain. I have a dread of that man."

"So have I, but from a different motive. As your dread increases, mine grows less."

Close a.n.a.lysis and consideration of this fact gave a very becoming tint to her cheeks as she welcomed the entering guest. "Ah, Miss Rose," he exclaimed, "blooming as ever, in spite of wintry days. Do you know I came very near going past your door?" He allowed the announcement of this providentially averted calamity to sink deep into her heart, while he bowed to Allan.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," murmured the young lady, with sufficient formality to prevent her words from being dangerously insincere.

"Unexpected to you and a pleasure to me?" queried the gentleman, with a keen glance at the pair, whose _tete-a-tete_ he had evidently disturbed, "or do your words bear reference to the idea of seeing me going past your door?"

The amount of truth in these very good guesses startled the girl to whom they were addressed into an uncomfortable sense of guilt. "How can you accuse me of anything so horrid?" she said, drawing her chair not far from him, and looking into his face with the appreciative air and att.i.tude that are not to be resisted.

"Mr. Galton," said Herbert, who, having completed the game, and vanquished his sister, could afford to turn his attention to the frivolous conversation of his elders, "do you know what Rose said when she saw you coming? She said, 'Oh, dear, I am so glad!'"

"Herbert," implored Rose, crimsoning under these carefully reported words, and fearing that Mr. Galton, not being aware of the motive which prompted them, would not know whether to be ecstatic or sarcastic, "you are a terrible boy!"

"Herbert has done me a great kindness," exclaimed the flattered gentleman, who considered Rose's embarra.s.sment quite natural, and very pleasing under the circ.u.mstances. "All my doubts of a welcome he has happily removed."

In the fear that these doubts might unhappily return if he were allowed to continue conversation with a too-confiding younger brother, Rose devoted herself with nervous intentness to his entertainment, and succeeded brilliantly. Fragments of laughter and chat drifted across to where Eva was trying to persuade Allan into playing checkers.

"Just one game, please, Mr. Dunlop," pleaded the little damsel, in resistless accents.

"If you but knew what a wretched player I am," said the young man gloomily.

"Oh, _are_ you a wretched player?" she exclaimed brightly, "I am so glad. Then there is some chance for me." She added confidentially, "I am even more wretched."

"I hope you may never have the same reason to be," said Allan, with a half-suppressed glance at the lively pair near the window.

A lover, from his very nature, must be decidedly unhappy or supremely blest, and it is scarcely to be expected that perfect felicity can reign in a heart whose pretty mistress is spending her smiles on another man. Allan did not believe that Rose really cared for Mr.

Galton--he had seen too many proofs to the contrary--but he did believe that she was giving that objectionable gentleman every reason to think that she did care. With how many men did she pursue this course of action, and was he to believe her guilty of careless coquetry? Upon how many admirers may a rose breathe perfume and still keep its innocent heart sweet for its lover? These were the questions that rankled in his mind, while Eva set the checkers in place.

"Perhaps I can keep you from getting a king," she said exultantly.

"If I can only keep my queen," observed the young man absently.

"Why, Mr. Dunlop, there are no queens in this game; it isn't like chess."

"There! you see how little I know about it," was the regretful reply.

Despite this painful manifestation of ignorance the two combatants appeared for a while to be very equally matched. Then the advantage was clearly on Allan's side. His king committed frightful havoc among the scattered ranks of the enemy, till suddenly, as he observed the painful stress of attention and warm colour in the face of his fair little foe, a strange and unaccountable languor fell upon his troops.

They seemed to care not whether they lived or died, while their shameless commander, surveying them with anxious countenance, gave vent to his emotion in such e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns as, "Dear me!" "Why didn't I see that move?" or, "The idea of your taking two men at one jump!" At last the announcement that he was completely vanquished was joyfully made by Eva, and incredulously listened to by Herbert, who viewed his sister's opponent with amazement, not unmingled with pity.

"The battle is indeed lost!" Herbert said, quoting the historic words in a consolatory way; "but there is time to win another."

"I'm afraid not," said Allan, rising and preparing to depart.

"I wish that you could have won the game, too," said Eva, suddenly stricken with remorse in the midst of her good-fortune.

"You are a very kind little girl. I can depend on you to consider my feelings."

The accent, ever so slight, upon the "you" aroused Rose's attention.

"Why, you are not going?" she exclaimed, coming towards him.

"Such is my charitable intention," he replied, smiling with sad eyes.

"I was only waiting for you to finish your game before bringing Mr.

Galton to the fire to talk politics with you."

"That is a warm topic, and a warm place."

"Perhaps Mr. Dunlop fears that we shall quarrel on the subject. You know we are on different sides, Miss Macleod."

"We shall hardly come to blows, I think," returned Allan, with the look of bright good-fellowship which made him a favourite with both political parties.

"The idea of your quarrelling with anybody!" said Rose, as she accompanied him to the door.

"I may have a very serious disagreement with him some time," replied her jealous though unacknowledged lover, "but it will not be about politics."

He ran hastily down the steps, unconsciously brushing against Commodore Macleod, who favoured him with a bow of about the same temperature as the weather. Muttering a hurried excuse, he went on into the cold gloom of the early winter twilight, shivering slightly, not from the chill without, but from the deadlier chill within. 'What a pompous unbearable old fellow the elder Macleod was. How could he endure to have him for a father-in-law? Ah! how could he endure not to have him?' The fear that he might never stand in a closer relationship to a man for whom he had so little liking lay heavily upon him.

That same evening the object of these mingled emotions laid a detaining hand upon the shoulder of his pretty daughter as she bent to bestow a bed-time kiss upon his grizzled moustache. "I wish to have a little conversation with you, my dear, on a serious subject."