"That's orthodox! It was a young curate with a lisp who told you, I'll
wager."

"Very warm!" she laughed, struck again by his astuteness. "It was your
hoodoo--Dr. Vivian! And, oh, now that I think of it, he gave me that
other pointer, too,--about giving away money."

Hugo replied: "The man seems to be dripping with wise old saws, in a
thoroughly inexpensive sort of way.... Well, we'll show him something
about giving away money some day."

He was silent a moment, and Carlisle then remembered her thought of
another large subscription to the Settlement, which she, for her part,
could easily make now with fifty thousand dollars all her own. But
Canning obliterated all such reflections by turning and taking her
abruptly in his arms.

"_This_ is what I want to make me happy. Darling--darling!..."

They sat on the shabby old leather lounge which papa had held fast to,
by winter and by summer, for thirty years. Here they had sat down soon
after eight o'clock, and now the soft-toned chimes in the hall had just
sounded eleven-thirty. In the first days of their engagement, Carlisle
had observed that Hugo was "very demonstrative." And now, at the end of
their loverly evening together, he became suddenly and strangely moved,
professing, in a voice unlike his own, his inability to live longer
without her. Then, ignoring all their elaborate plannings, he abruptly
begged her to marry him in June, as he had first asked her....

"Why, Hugo!" she said, surprised and a little uncomfortable. "That's so