"Let me hear it," said Leslie Dane, smiling.
Bonnibel recounted the words and gestures of the old sibyl with patient exactness and inimitable mimicry to her interested listener.
"It was Wild Madge, no doubt," said he, when she had finished. "I have seen her several times on the shore, and I made quite an effective picture of her once, though I dare say the old witch would want to murder me if she knew it. The gossips hereabouts assert that she can read the future very truly."
"You do not believe it—do you?" asked she, looking up with a gleam of something like dread in her beautiful blue orbs.
"Believe it—of course not," said he, contemptuously. "There were but two things she told you that I place any faith in."
"What are they?" she questioned, anxiously.
"I believe you will be an old man's darling, for I know you are that already. Your Uncle Francis loves the very ground you walk upon, to use a homely expression, and, Bonnibel," he paused, his voice lingering over the sound of her name with inexpressible tenderness.
"Well?" she said, looking up with an innocent inquiry in her eyes.
"And, Bonnibel—forgive my daring, little one—I believe you will be a young man's bride if you will let me make you such."
They were spoken—words that had been trembling on his lips all these summer months, in which Bonnibel Vere had grown dearer to him than his own life—the words that would seal his fate! He looked at her imploringly, but her face was turned away, and she was trailing one white ungloved hand idly through the blue water.