'No, and you will let me have my old ring,' she returned, softly. 'Oh, Rex, I cried half the night, when you would not let me wear it. I never cared so much for my beautiful diamonds.'
A misty smile crossed Roy's face.
'No, Polly, I never mean to part with it again. Look here,'—and he showed her the garnets suspended to his watch-chain—'we will exchange rings in the old German fashion, dear. I will keep the garnets, and I will buy you the pearl hoop you admired so much; you must remember, you have chosen only a poor artist.'
'Oh, Rex, how I shall glory in your pictures!' cried the girl, breathlessly. 'I have always loved them for your sake, but now it will be so different. They will be dearer than ever to me.'
'I never could have worked without you, Polly,' returned the young man, humbly. 'I tried, but it was a miserable failure; it was your childish praise that first made me seriously think of being an artist; and when you failed me, all the spirit seemed to die out of me, just as the sunshine fades out of a landscape, leaving nothing but a gray mist. Oh, Polly, even you scarcely know how wretched you made me.'
'Do not let us talk of it,' she whispered, pressing closer to him; 'let us only try to deserve our happiness.'
'That is what he said,' replied Roy, in a low voice. 'He told me that we were very young to have such a responsibility laid upon us, and that we must help each other. Oh, what a good man he is,' he continued, with some emotion, 'and to think that at one time I almost hated him.'
'You could not help it,' she answered, shyly. To her there was no flaw in her young lover; his impatience and jealousy, his hot and cold fits that had so sorely tried her, his singular outbursts of temper, had only been natural under the circumstances; she would have forgiven him harder usage than that; but Roy judged himself more truly.
'No, dear, you must not excuse me,' was the truthful answer. 'I bore my trouble badly, and made every one round me wretched; and now all these coals of fire are heaped upon me. If he had been my brother, he could not have borne with me more gently. Oh,' cried the lad, earnestly, 'it is something to see into the depths of a good man's heart. I think I saw more than he meant me to do, but time will prove. One thing is certain, that he never loved you as I do, Polly.'
'No; it was all a strange mistake,' she returned, blushing and smiling; 'but hush! here comes Aunt Milly.'