"He can object until he is tired," cried the ardent lover. "If he does not make you happy I must. And when he sees this----"
"Oh!" Lesbia clasped her hand in delight at the sight of a cheap turquoise ring, "how lovely!"
George frowned at the mean gift. "It was all I could afford," said he.
"It is all I want," she said, as he slipped it on her engagement finger, "it's not the cost, or even the thing. It's what it means. Love and joy to you and me, dearest boy."
But George, having a generous heart, still lamented. "If I hadn't to keep my mother," he said ruefully. "I would save up and give you diamonds. But two hundred a year goes a very little way with my mother, even when her own small income is added. You see, dear, she never forgets that my father was the Honourable Aylmer Walker, and she will insist upon having everything of the best. This is a beastly cheap ring, but--but----"
"But you denied yourself all manner of nice things to buy it for ME," finished Lesbia, pressing a kiss on his willing cheek.
"No, dear, no," he said valiantly, "only a few pipes of tobacco."
"You dearest donkey," cooed the girl, more touched than she chose to confess, "doesn't that show me how you love me. As to the ring," she surveyed the cheap trinket critically, "it is exactly what I wanted. The stones are the colour of your dear eyes."
George, man-like, was delighted. "You know the colour of my eyes?"
Lesbia boxed his ears delicately. "I knew the colour exactly one minute after our very first meeting."