the tray. And he steadily resisted all my attempts to return to the subject of Lady Muriel until the evening had almost worn itself away. Then, as we sat gazing into the fire, and conversation was lapsing into silence, he made a hurried confession.
"I hadn't meant to tell you anything about her," he said (naming no names, as if there were only one 'she' in the world !) "till you had seen more of her, and formed your own judgment of her: but somehow you surprised it out of me. And I've not breathed a word of it to any one else. But I can trust you with a secret, old friend! Yes ! It's true of me, what I suppose you said in jest."
"In the merest jest, believe me!" I said earnestly. "Why, man, I'm three times her age! But if she's your choice, then I'm sure she's all that is good and——"
"——and sweet," Arthur went on, "and pure, and self-denying, and true-hearted, and——" he broke off hastily, as if he could not trust himself to say more on a subject so sacred and so precious. Silence followed: and I leaned back drowsily in my easy-chair, filled with bright
