"Dearest Cosmo, what has happened—you look extremely pale?"
"Do I, mother—pale, eh?"
"Yes, and quite ruffled too," she added.
"Well, perhaps so—your friend Flora is the cause."
"Flora Warrender?"
"Yes."
"Explain, Cosmo, explain?" she asked with evident uneasiness.
"I had a long conversation with her in the garden, and it was decidedly more animated than amatory in the end."
"You quarrelled?"
"Not at all—I proposed," he replied, with a strange smile.