"Open it before you say that," said he; "you don't know that there is anything in it yet."
"Ah, but I know your ways," she rejoined; "I know it is sure to be something lovely." And then she lifted the lid, and exclaimed "O-o-oh!" with a long breath. There lay, on a bed of blue velvet, a beautiful little watch, thickly set on one side of the case with tiny diamond sparks, which on examination proved to illuminate the flourishes of a big R; and a chain of proportionate value was coiled around it.
Rachel was in ecstacies. She had longed for a watch all her life, and had never yet had one, except an old silver warming-pan of her father's, which would not go into a lady's pocket.
It was only lately that Mr. Kingston had discovered this fact; and he had immediately had one prepared for her, such as he considered would be worthy of her future position in society, and of his own reputation for good taste. He felt himself well repaid for his outlay at this moment. Of her own accord she put up her soft lips and kissed him, pouring out her childish gratitude for his thoughtfulness, and his kindness, and his goodness, in broken exclamations which were charmingly naïve and sweet.
"You are always giving me things," she murmured, shyly stroking his coat sleeve.
"Dear little woman!" he responded, with ardent embraces, from which she did not shrink—at least, not much; "it is my greatest pleasure in life to give you things."
And from this substantial base of operations the astute lover opened the campaign which was to deliver her, a helpless captive, into his hands.
"And now," he said, when the watch having been consigned to its pocket in her pretty homespun gown, and the chain artistically festooned from a button-hole at her waist, a suggestive silence fell upon them—"now I want to know what you mean by saying you won't be married till next year? Naughty child, you made me very miserable with that letter. Though to be sure it was better than the other one, which was so horribly, so really brutally, cold that I had to go to the fire to get warm after reading it. Oh, Rachel, you are not half in love yet, I fear!"
"Don't say that," she murmured, with tender compunction.
"And I believe that is why you wish to put off our marriage."