The evening passed quietly enough, enlivened
by snatches of song from Madeleine, who seemed
too restless to go steadily through anything,
but made the room sweet with beginnings and
ends. Tea was placed on the table, and I
completely swamped myself in that liquid,
Madeleine holding the uncomfortable theory that
the more domestic a man was, the more tea he
would necessarily take into his system; so Prior
and I ran a race for reputation, and Prior won
by a cup.

"Going my way?" said that hero at length,
admiring his hands in lavender kids, and then
generously offering them all round.

I assured him I was not; so, looking
surprised, he took his departure.

"Mr. Stevens," said Madeleine, in a low
chair, quiet and grave: like the heroine of
Conny's story, when she had made up her
mind, it would be very pleasant to have
beautiful things for her very own: "I have made a
mistake."

I thought the assertion so very likely to be
correct, that I made no attempt at contradiction.

"While you have been away," said
Madeleine, telling a story I had heard before, "Mr.
Prior made love to me, as I told you. I tried
at first to prevent him, and, indeed, he knew I
was engaged to you, but he went on all the
same. He brought me all the last new novels,
and——"

"And gave you a paint-box, and a dog with
a collar, and took you at night to hear music?"

The words were Madeleine's, and she
recognised them at once for her own.

"You know all!" she said. And there was
silence between us. "Can you forgive me?"
she said at length, nestling up to my arms, and
laying her bright head down on my coat. "I'm
so sorry, Jack! I can't think what made me
do so, for I knew all along he could never make
me happy, for I love you——"

"Better than you could ever, ever, ever love
him!" I said. "Conny told me so. Oh, Madeleine
darling, this is much the prettier ending of
the two!"

Madeleine seemed to think so also. She
smiled through her tears, and looked up at me
from under her eyelashes.

"I'm so sorry," she said again.

I instantly said I was sorry too (that being the
correct thing to say under the circumstances).

"Oh, my eye, what a game it is!" said
Splutters, with his usual tact, bursting into the
room at break-neck speed. "There's been such
a jolly row! The governor's been pitching
into Prior about coming here, and Prior says
he's 'left for ever!' Ain't it fun? It's an
awful sell, though," said Splutters, suddenly,
with a face that had lengthened considerably.
"Prior was going to have given me
silkworms."

"Talking of pets," I said, carelessly, trying
to attract Splutters into friendship, but
scrupulously addressing Madeleine: "I am quite
overrun with them, you know. I have so many
dormice I don't know what to do with them;
and as to my guinea-pig——but him, of course,
I must get rid of."

"Give it us," said Tom, speaking in the
plural, but by no means intending that
Madeleine should share in the gift; and Splutters and
I were friends for ever.

So happily the weeks went on to the eve of
my wedding-day. It was getting dusk, and I
was sitting by the fire in the dear old drawing-
room, holding Madeleine's little hand in mine,
and gazing at the sweet face that was so soon
to belong to my wife; when to-morrow's little
bridesmaid appeared at the door, in a white
frock, and with long white mists floating
backward from her pretty curls.

"How very nice, Conny!" I said, for she
stood quite still to receive compliments; "very
pretty indeed, dear."

I rather wished she would go away, for I was
enjoying a last tête-à-tête with Miss Flutters,
and telling myself that to-morrow I should lose
that young lady for ever, and how would that
feel! But Conny had caught sight of her sister
down on the hearth-rug, and sprang to her with
a little cry of pain that made me feel a wicked
brute, and completely upset poor Madeleine.

"Hush, hush, darling," she said; "don't cry
so, Conny. I shall soon be back, and then
you're coming to stay with me, you know, and
papa and Splutters and all."

But Conny had lost all her sense. She gave
herself a little shake, and the frock and the
mists were much injured.

"Conny," I said, taking her from her sister's
arms: white as the veil that now hung limp
around her, wet with her tears: no longer an
emblem of to-morrow's joy: "listen to me.
You shall keep Madeleine. I'll not take her
from you."

"Oh, hush, Jack," said Madeleine. "Poor
little Conny!" But Conny herself looked up.

"Really?" she asked; "not a story?"

"You shall keep her," I said, "if you say
so."

After this there was a pause, during which I
gave vent to some very affecting sighs.

"What will you do?" asked Conny, at
length, laying a caressing cheek against mine,
and covering me up with her veil.

"I? Oh, I shall go away, Conny; the
beautiful young lady won't come to me."

"Was that you?" asked Conny, in great
surprise; "were you the good one, and was
Madeleine the beautiful young lady? Oh!"

"How shall the story end, Conny?"

Conny looked up with a flash of her old
quickness, but the dear head went down again
on my shoulder.

"Shall I finish it, Conny?" said her sister,
softly; and Conny's grasp tightened round my
neck.

"Say 'Yes,'" she whispered. So I said
"Yes," and Madeleine finished the story.