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remember what it was about. moment came blowing along But she rather thought it might come back to her, as such dreams did sometimes. I felt pretty safe, however.

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Why, because if it hadn't been you, you'd have said no, and not answered my question with another. See? Besides, my dream's coming back to me-in spots, you know-just here and there something's filling in the picture of that night. I remember, for instance, the rat quite plainly. And was it you who called me a jade? Some one did, and the voice seems rather familiar.'

"Well, the cat came out of the bag. It had to. It's no good trying to win out in a cross-examination by a woman. I swore her to secrecy, of course, except her aunt, who at that

as she was always doing now. It had become a joke between Miss Seton and me; we called her the mauvais courant d'air. So I cleared out. But, my eye! wasn't she snotty with me later on! Not much Madonnalike calm about her when roused, I can tell you. 'Aggravating' and making silly mysteries were

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some of the things she said. She did sting, especially when she said she hated 'mock heroics.' Miss Seton only made it worse with, But, Aunt Amy, he is a hero,' and I worse again -I was quite nettled now and forgot myself-by saying, 'I'm damned if I am.' But things blew over in time, and aunt and I got quite nice to one another.

"I was sorry when the voyage ended. I'm not usually. Miss Seton was rather extra cheerful when she said goodbye-more than I was. And the aunt gave me their London address and said, 'Come and look us up one of these days, won't you?'

"I did look them up. They were awfully hospitable folk, and I went pretty often. Of course, I had long been over head and ears with Miss Seton, but I had kept it to myself, and I don't think she had any inkling of it. But one day I went there meaning to propose. What worried me was this. Miss Seton might conceivably think herself, quite wrongly, under some sort of obligation to me for having let me share

her buoy. I felt that on that account she might say yes, while on every other account she would say no. You see my point? Well, I decided to have no nonsense of that sort, and to make it clear to her that I couldn't receive a yes on those terms. So when we were alone, I told her that I knew she was full of common-sense, and wouldn't let me down in the matter I was about to speak of. She looked rather puzzled, and said she hoped not. Then I said that great issues hung upon her answer to a question I was about to ask her. She looked less puzzled now, so I went on

"'You mustn't let any imaginary sense of obligation to me influence your answer. You see that, of course?'

"She looked rather bored and said no. But she meant yes, really. The matter now seemed to me to have been made perfectly clear, but to make quite sure, I said, 'Word of honour now!'

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the obligation wouldn't let her. That's how I figured it out. The best thing I could do was to make it easier for her by clearing out. So I said, 'I shall leave you to think things over,' and I went.

"Later on, after casting it up, I felt quite positive that her real feelings towards me were no, but that her unreal or obligation feelings would have forced her to say yes. You can't trust a woman's word in everything: she'd have let me down. I was glad I left her before that happened.

"To make things easier for her, I wrote and refused for her. I worded my letter very carefully, so that she could see that I wouldn't change my mind.

"She never answered it. Sensible of her, I thought."

Had William been the parfyte gentyle knight, he should now have departed to some remote part of the earth, where in a temperature of 40° under zero or 120° above it he could have awaited an end to his miseries. He might have passed, perhaps lessened, the interim by attacking the larger carnivora with

"You will in a minute,' I inadequate small-bore rifles or said.

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even the long-bow. But he did none of these things. Having fulfilled so excellently the rôle of blundering cockchafer, he had assumed that of the moth anxious to singe its wings : he remained in London. He was not in the least aware of the hash he had tried to make of things.

Mary Seton had been be

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wildered and baffled by William's method. But she possessed the grace of humour, and a woman will forgive more easily than any other the fault of quixotry in the man she loves. She wept all over her aunt, but the position was not hopeless.

Thus the moth was fluttering in melancholy-wise down Piccadilly some fortnight later when it sighted the approach of Mrs Seton. Desire for a singe overcame the fear of a snub, and it held on its course towards her, and did not escape up Halfmoon Street.

Mrs Seton was a woman of the world, and received William kindly, but immediately took him into custody. She remarked that it was quite a long time since he had been to see them; what had he been doing with himself? Oh yes, thanks, Mary was quite well-at least, quite well in herself, but rather mopish, off her sleep. Quite unaccountable. Too much season, she supposed. "We must do what we can to cheer her up."

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"So," thought William,

Mary had not confided in her."

But William knew rather less than nothing of the sex.

It was borne in on him that his part in the cheering-up process was to come back to lunch-nor was he loth to fall in with this implication.

Mary came trilling and tripping down to that meal. There were no signs of mope. Her

lover, who had expected a Niobe in half-mourning, if not a French widow under a cascade of crêpe, was again puzzled. During the meal she was bright, chatty, and not the least constrained. After it, when her aunt and William were alone for a moment, the latter said

"I'm glad your niece is so bright. I had rather gathered from what you said

It was then that the violetray burnt momentarily in aunt's eye and illuminated William's dull understanding as she

hissed

"Oh ! you-you-Man!" adding at once in normal tones as Mary re-entered, "I'm simply snowed under with letters to write. I'm going to leave you two to amuse one another."

Some two hours later they were still amusing one another. An endless spoony wrangle was in process. They were seated in a chair capable of holding two in a vertical plane, and William was saying—

"But, my darling, you know you hesitated quite a long time."

"But, my sweetheart, weren't you just a little in a hurry? And your meaning wasn't very clear, was it? I don't think it's usually done like that."

"But, my ownest, you sniffed, you positively sniffed. You must allow that. And naturally I took it for granted that

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"But, my sweet, mayn't I sniff when I'm too frightfully

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No; but then you have such a lot to learn about us, darling. And then came your dear horrid letter just as if I had proposed and you were refusing me. Aunt Amy and I cried all over each other about it."

"But I thought you hadn't told your aunt anything about it?

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their positions necessitated contortions. She eyed him like a dove, and cooed like one

"Oh, you-you-dearest and best, but Man!"

At that moment Mrs Seton gave evidences of being outside the door. William made efforts to rectify their postures.

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Not on your life," said Mary. "And if you don't mind, I'm now going to really cling. Aunt Amy will simply love it."

"I suppose," said Aunt Amy, after envisaging things," you've accepted my niece this time?

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"I have," said William, in a strangled voice, "for the

Mary screwed her neck round second time of asking."

CHASSEURS OF PROVENCE.

BY J. O. P. BLAND.

I REMEMBER noticing, at the time of the ouverture de la chasse last September, that no less than fifteen thousand citizens of Paris had taken out gun licences. It is a figure which, like the long line of patient fishermen on the quays of the Seine, speaks volumes for the indomitable optimism of the sporting instinct in Frenchmen, or, shall shall we say, for their philosophic acceptance of the day of small things? Down here, in Provence, amongst the vine-lands of the Esterels and the Chaine des Maures, the proportion of able-bodied males which fares forth on Sundays with game-bag, dog, and gun is probably a good deal higher than in the Départments du Nord. No doubt the post-office could give you the amazing totals, but it would be much more interesting to know how the average head of game per gun works out in a season, and to learn what constitutes game in the eyes of the average chasseur; in other words, where he draws the line and not the trigger. As I take my walks abroad and hear them popping away merrily on the wooded hillsides all around; as I watch them, sipping petits verres at their ease in some wayside inn and telling their stirring tales of flood and field, I sometimes ask myself these questions;

but the more one sees of these indefatigable sportsmen, the deeper becomes the mystery of their numbers and persever

ance.

Occasionally, when I overtake one, sturdily trudging homewards at dusk, his gamebag hanging suspiciously limp, I fall in with him for a while, and tactfully endeavour to pump him concerning the nature and habitats of his quarry ; but the heart of the mystery has never been greatly enlightened by these encounters. Your true son of the soil in these coast-lands of Provence is endowed with a wealth of imagination and of words which leaves Tartarin, so to speak, on the post. He has all of Tartarin's instinct for the dramatic and the picturesque, the méridional's passion for impressing the world at large with a sense of his cleverness and importance; but his methods are more elemental, one might almost say (at a safe distance) more childishly simple, than those of the hero of Tarascon. If you know your "Cantagril" you will understand what I mean. The swagger and panache of the Provençal lack something of that quality of philosophic geniality which makes the extravagant romancers of the true Midi such pleasant com

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