“Is anything amiss?” she asked once, in her cool, level tone, fixing upon him her sincerely honest eyes.  “Are there blacks on my nose?” Although she had distinctly refused him at Kalsing, as became a girl destitute of vanity and coquetry and attached to some one else, she had not found him the less fluent, omnipresent, persuasive, at Niagara.  It was diverting to see them seated side by side on Goat Island, he waving his hand toward the blue sky, apostrophizing the water, the foliage, the clouds, and what not, in prose and verse, quite content if he but got a quiet glance and assenting word now and then, she listening demurely in a state of protestant satisfaction, her fair hair very dazzling in the sunshine, an unvarying apple-blossom tint in her calm face, her fingers tatting industriously not to waste the time outright.  It was very agreeable in a way, she told herself, but something must really be done to get rid of the man.  And so, one morning when they chanced to be alone, and he was being unusually ethereal and beautiful in his remarks, telling her that, as Byron had said, she would be “the morning star of memory” for him, she broke in squarely, “That is all very nice; very pretty, I am sure.  But I do hope you quite understand that I have not the least idea of marrying you.  There is no use in going on like this, you know, and you would have a right to reproach me if I kept silent and led you to think that I was being won over by your fine speeches.  You see, you don’t really want a star at all.  You want a wife; though military men, as a rule, are better off single.  I do thank you heartily for liking me for myself, and all that, and I shall always remember the kind things you have done, and our acquaintance, but you must put me quite out of your head as a wife.  I should not suit you at all.  You would have to leave the American service, and I should hate feeling I had tied you down, and I couldn’t contribute a penny toward the household expenses, and, altogether, we are much better apart.  It would not answer at all.  So, thank you again for the honor you have conferred upon me, and be—­be rather more—­like other people, won’t you, for the future?  Auntie fancies that I am encouraging you, and is getting very vexed about it.  Perhaps you had better go away?  Yes, that would be best, I think.”

Thus solicited, Captain Kendall went away, taking a mournfully-eloquent farewell of Ethel, which she thought final; but in this she was mistaken.

Our party did not linger long after this.  Sir Robert met a titled acquaintance, who inflamed his mind so much about Manitoba that he decided to go to Canada at once, taking Miss Noel, Ethel, and Mr. Heathcote; Mrs. Sykes had taken up on her first arrival with some New York people, who asked her to visit them in the central part of the State,—­which disposed of her; Mabel was secretly longing to get back to her “American child,” as Mrs. Sykes called little Jared Ponsonby; and they separated, with the understanding that they should meet again before the English guests left the country, and with a warm liking for each other, the Sykes not being represented in the pleasant covenants of friendship formed.