He will be here to-day! Involuntarily she raises one hand and looks at the ring that encircles her engaged finger. A charming ring of pearls and sapphires. It evidently brings her happy thoughts, as, after gazing at it for a moment or two, she stoops and presses her lips eagerly to it. It is his first gift (though not his last), and therefore the most precious. What girl does not like receiving a present from her lover? The least mercenary woman on earth must feel a glow at her heart and a fonder recognition of her sweetheart's worth when he lays a love-offering at her feet.
Joyce, after her one act of devotion to her sweetheart, runs down the garden path and toward the summer house. She is not expecting Dysart until the day has well grown into its afternoon; but, book in hand, she has escaped from all possible visitors to spend a quiet hour in the old earwiggy shanty at the end of the garden, sure of finding herself safe there from interruptions.
The sequel proves the futility of all human belief.
Inside the summer house; book in hand likewise, sits Mr. Browne, a picture of studious virtue.
Miss Kavanagh, seeing him, stops dead short, so great is her surprise, and Mr. Browne, raising his eyes, as if with difficulty, from the book on his knee, surveys her with a calmly judicial eye.
"Not here. Not here, my child," quotes he, incorrectly. "You had better try next door."
"Try for what?" demands she, indignantly.
"For whom? You mean——"
"No, I don't," with increasing anger.
"Jocelyne!" says Mr. Browne, severely. "When one forsakes the path of truth it is only to tread in——"