along the dark walnut baluster.  His heart went out to meet her.  He confessed to himself, with a lover’s instantaneous conviction, that there was nothing in the world so utterly desirable as that tall and fair-haired girl slowly descending the stairs.  In the midst of his tumultuous feeling a trivial thought occurred to him:  “I am shot through the heart by the blind archer,” he said to himself; and he no longer laughed at the old-fashioned symbol of the sudden and fatal power of love.

But with all this tumult of joy in the senses waking up to their allegiance, there came a certain reserve.  The goddess-like creature who had so suddenly become the mistress of his soul was a very serious personage to confront in her new majesty.  He did not follow the impulse of his heart and rush forward as she entered the room.  He merely rose and bowed.  She made the faintest possible salutation, and, without taking a seat, conveyed her mother’s excuses in a tone of such studied coldness that it amused Farnham, who took it as a school-girl’s assumption of a grand and ceremonious manner suitable to a tete-a-tete with man.

“Thank you,” he said, “but I did not come especially to see your mother.  My object was rather to see you.”  She did not smile or reply, and he went on, with a slight sensation of chill coming upon him from this stony dignity, which, the more he observed it, seemed less and less amusing and not at all artificial.  “I came to ask if you would not like to go to ride this afternoon.  It is just gray enough for comfort.”

“I thank you very much for being so kind as to think of me,” she replied, “but it will not be convenient for me to go.”

“Perhaps the morning will suit better.  I will come to-morrow at any hour you say.”

“I shall not be able to go to-morrow either, I think.”

Even while exchanging these few words, Alice felt herself growing slightly embarrassed, and it filled her with dismay.  “I am a poor creature,” she thought, “if I cannot get this self-satisfied gentleman out of the house without breaking down.  I can’t stand here forever though,” and so she took a seat, and as Arthur resumed his willow chair with an air of content, she could not but feel that as yet the skirmish was not in her favor.  She called her angry spirit to her aid, and nerved herself to say something which would promptly close the interview.

His next words gave her the opportunity.

“But you surely do not intend to give up riding altogether?”

“Certainly not.  I hope to ride a good deal.  Andrews will go with me.”

“Ah!  Your objection to me as a groom is entirely personal, then.”

“Now for it!” she thought to herself, and she said firmly, “Yes.”

But the effort was too great, and after the word was launched her mouth broke up into a nervous smile, for which she despised herself, but which she could not control for her life.