kindness.' Penrose took my hand, in his gentle, considerate way.
'I understand you, too,' he said--and that was all that passed

between us."
"Nothing more, since that time?"

"Nothing."
"Not a word of what we said to each other when we were alone last

week in the picture gallery?"
"Not a word. I am self-tormentor enough to distrust myself, even

now. God knows I have concealed nothing from you; and yet-- Am I
not selfishly thinking of my own happiness, Stella, when I ought

to be thinking only of you? You know, my angel, with what a life
you must associate yourself if you marry me. Are you really sure

tha t you have love enough and courage enough to be my wife?"
She rested her head caressingly on his shoulder, and looked up at

him with her charming smile.
"How many times must I say it," she asked, "before you will

believe me? Once more--I have love enough and courage enough to
be your wife; and I knew it, Lewis, the first time I saw you!

Will _that_ confession satisfy your scruples? And will you
promise never again to doubt yourself or me?"

Romayne promised, and sealed the promise--unresisted this
time--with a kiss. "When are we to be married?" he whispered.

She lifted her head from his shoulder with a sigh. "If I am to
answer you honestly," she replied, "I must speak of my mother,

before I speak of myself."
Romayne submitted to the duties of his new position, as well as

he understood them. "Do you mean that you have told your mother
of our engagement?" he said. "In that case, is it my duty or

yours--I am very ignorant in these matters--to consult her
wishes? My own idea is, that I ought to ask her if she approves

of me as her son-in-law, and that you might then speak to her of
the marriage."

Stella thought of Romayne's tastes, all in favor of modest
retirement, and of her mother's tastes, all in favor of

ostentation and display. She frankly owned the result produced in
her own mind. "I am afraid to consult my mother about our

marriage, " she said.
Romayne looked astonished. "Do you think Mrs. Eyrecourt will

disapprove of it?" he asked.
Stella was equally astonished on her side. "Disapprove of it?"

she repeated. "I know for certain that my mother will be
delighted."

"Then where is the difficulty?"
There was but one way of definitely answering that question.

Stella boldly described her mother's idea of a wedding--including
the Archbishop, the twelve bridesmaids in green and gold, and the

hundred guests at breakfast in Lord Loring's picture gallery.
Romayne's consternationliterally deprived him, for the moment,

of the power of speech. To say that he looked at Stella, as a
prisoner in "the condemned cell" might have looked at the

sheriff, announcing the morning of his execution, would be to do
injustice to the prisoner. He receives _his_ shock without

flinching; and, in proof of his composure, celebrates his wedding
with the gallows by a breakfast which he will not live to digest.

"If you think as your mother does," Romayne began, as soon as he
had recovered his self-possession, "no opinion of mine shall

stand in the way--" He could get no further. His vivid
imagination saw the Archbishop and the bridesmaids, heard the

hundred guests and their dreadful speeches: his voice faltered,
in spite of himself.

Stella eagerly relieved him. "My darling, I don't think as my
mother does," she interposed, tenderly. "I am sorry to say we

have very few sympathies in common. Marriages, as I think, ought
to be celebrated as privately as possible--the near and dear

relations present, and no one else. If there must be rejoicings
and banquets, and hundreds of invitations, let them come when the

wedded pair are at home after the honeymoon, beginning life in
earnest. These are odd ideas for a woman to have--but they _are_

my ideas, for all that."
Romayne's face brightened. "How few women possess your fine sense

and your delicacy of feeling!" he exclaimed "Surely your mother
must give way, when she hears we are both of one mind about our

marriage."
Stella knew her mother too well to share the opinion thus

expressed. Mrs. Eyrecourt's capacity for holding to her own
little ideas, and for persisting (where her social interests were

concerned) in trying to insinuate those ideas into the minds of
other persons, was a capacity which no resistance, short of

absolute brutality, could overcome. She was perfectlycapable of
worrying Romayne (as well as her daughter) to the utmost limits

of human endurance, in the firm conviction that she was bound to
convert all heretics, of their way of thinking, to the orthodox

faith in the matter of weddings. Putting this view of the case
with all possible delicacy, in speaking of her mother, Stella

expressed herself plainly enough, nevertheless, to enlighten
Romayne.

He made another suggestion. "Can we marry privately," he said,
"and tell Mrs. Eyrecourt of it afterward?"

This essentiallymasculinesolution of the difficulty was at once
rejected. Stella was too good a daughter to suffer her mother to

be treated with even the appearance of disrespect. "Oh," she
said, "think how mortified and distressed my mother would be! She

_must_ be present at my marriage."
An idea of a compromise occurred to Romayne. "What do you say,"

he proposed, "to arranging for the marriage privately--and then
telling Mrs. Eyrecourt only a day or two beforehand, when it

would be too late to send out invitations? If your mother would
be disappointed--"

"She would be angry," Stella interposed.
"Very well--lay all the blame on me. Besides, there might be two

other persons present, whom I am sure Mrs. Eyrecourt is always
glad to meet. You don't object to Lord and Lady Loring?"

"Object? They are my dearest friends, as well as yours!"
"Any one else, Stella?"

"Any one, Lewis, whom _you_ like.
"Then I say--no one else. My own love, when may it be? My lawyers

can get the settlements ready in a fortnight, or less. Will you
say in a fortnight?"

His arm was round her waist; his lips were touching her lovely
neck. She was not a woman to take refuge in the commonplace

coquetries of the sex. "Yes," she said, softly, "if you wish it."
She rose and withdrew herself from him. "For my sake, we must not

be here together any longer, Lewis." As she spoke, the music in
the ballroom ceased. Stella ran out of the conservatory.

The first person she encountered, on returning to the
reception-room, was Father Benwell.

CHAPTER III.
THE END OF THE BALL.

THE priest's long journey did not appear to have fatigued him. He
was as cheerful and as polite as ever--and so paternally

attentive to Stella that it was quite impossible for her to pass
him with a formal bow.

"I have come all the way from Devonshire," he said. "The train
has been behind time as usual, and I am one of the late arrivals

in consequence. I miss some familiar faces at this delightful
party. Mr. Romayne, for instance. Perhaps he is not one of the

guests?"
"Oh, yes."

"Has he gone away?"
"Not that I know of."

The tone of her replies warned Father Benwell to let Romayne be.
He tried another name.

"And Arthur Penrose?" he inquired next.
"I think Mr. Penrose has left us."