"Rose is a mystery," said Kate, vexed; "she has quite a new way of acting. But you know," smiling radiantly, "a Stanford never yields."
"True. It is discouraging, but I shall try again. Good-night, dearest and best, and pleasant dreams—of me."
He ascended to his bedroom, lamp in hand. A fire blazed in the grate; and sitting down before it, his coat off, his slippers on, his hands in his pockets, he gazed at it with knitted brow, and whistling softly. For half an hour he sat, still as a statue. Then he got up, found his writing-case, and sat down to indite a letter. He was singing the fag-end of something as he dipped his pen in the ink.
"Bind the sea to slumber stilly—
Bind its odour to the lily—
Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver—
Then bind love to last forever!"
/P "Danton Hall, February 26, 18—P/
"My Dear Lauderdale: I think I promised, when I left Windsor, to write to tell you how I got on in this horribly Arctic region. It is nearly two months since I left Windsor, and my conscience (don't laugh—I have discovered that I have a conscience) gives me sundry twinges when I think of you. I don't feel like sleeping to-night. I am full of my subject, so here goes.
"In the first place, Miss Danton is well, and as much of in angel as ever. In the second place, Danton Hall is delightful, and holds more angels than one. In the third place, Ronald Keith is here, and half mad with jealousy. The keenest north wind that has ever blown since I came to Canada is not half so freezing as he. Alas, poor Yorick! He is a fine fellow, too, and fought like a lion in the Russian trenches; but there was Sampson, and David, and Solomon, and Marc Antony—you know what love did to them one and all.
"Kate refused him a year ago, in England—I found it out by accident, not from her, of course; and yet here he is. It is the old story of the moth and the candle, and sometimes I laugh, and sometimes I am sorry for him. He has eight thousand a year, too; and the Keiths are great people in Scotland, I hear. Didn't I always try to impress it on you that it was better to be born handsome than rich? I am not worth fifteen hundred shillings a year, and in June (D. V.) beautiful Kate Danton is to be my wife. Recant your heresy, and believe for the future.
"Angel, No. 2.—I told you there were more than one—has hazel eyes, pink cheeks, auburn curls, and the dearest little ways. She is not beautiful—she is not stately—she does not play and sing the soul out of your body, and yet—and yet——. Lauderdale, you always told me my peerless fiancée was a thousand times too good for me. I never believed you before. I do believe you now. She soars beyond my reach sometimes. I don't pretend to understand her, and—tell it not in Gath—I stand a little in awe of her. I never was on speaking terms with her most gracious majesty, whom Heaven long preserve; but, if I were, I fancy I should feel as I do sometimes talking to Kate. She is perfection, and I am—well, I am not, and she is very fond of me. Would she break her heart, do you think, if she does not become Mrs. Reginald Stanford? June is the time, but there is many a slip. I know what your answer will be—'She will break her heart if she does!' It is a bad business, old boy; but it is fate, or we will say so—and hazel eyes and auburn curls are very, very tempting.
"You used to think a good deal of Captain Danton, if I recollect right. By the way, how old is the Captain? I ask, because there is a housekeeper here, who is a distant cousin, one of the family, very quiet, sensible, lady-like, and six and twenty, who may be Mrs. Captain Danton one day. Mind, I don't say for certain, but I have my suspicions. He couldn't do better. Grace—that's her name—has a brother here, a doctor, very fine fellow, and so cute. I catch him looking at me sometimes in a very peculiar manner, which I think I understand.