Some six hours later Everard is seated in the Rectory garden, helping Miss Deane to pin small bits of numbered paper on a miscellaneous collection of articles that are to delight four hundred smoky little souls on Thursday; but his thick lazy fingers do but little work compared with those of his companion, who watches his movements with some anxiety.
"Jack," she exclaims at last, in temperate expostulation, "please—please don't put a pin through her nose! That doll is a special prize, and the number will be found quite as easily on any part of her skirt. Perhaps you had better let me finish—"
"Cicely," he says hurriedly, his face flushing, "I want to tell you something. I—I thought I should like to tell you first. You remember when we were children I always came to you—"
"Yes, I remember. What is your news, Jack? Something nice—and important I can see by your face."
"I am going to be married, Cicely, to the dearest, sweetest, loveliest girl in England!"
"To Miss Lefroy?"
"Yes, yes—to whom else?"
"I—I congratulate you, Jack, most sincerely," says Cicely, in her little prim measured accents, putting her hand in his, first waiting to adjust the position of the pin in the doll's polonaise. "I saw you admired her very much all last winter; she is very beautiful. You have not been long engaged?"
"Only since this afternoon, and—and I don't want to make any secret of my great happiness and—luck," he says warmly, almost pugnaciously, looking her in the face.