Myrtle had, perhaps, never so seriously inclined her ear to the honeyed accents of the young pleader.  He flattered her with so much tact, that she thought she heard an unconscious echo through his lips of an admiration which he only shared with all around him.  But in him he made it seem discriminating, deliberate, not blind, but very real.  This it evidently was which had led him to trust her with his ambitions and his plans,—­they might be delusions, but he could never keep them from her, and she was the one woman in the world to whom he thought he could safely give his confidence.

The dread moment was close at hand.  Myrtle was listening with an instinctive premonition of what was coming,—­ten thousand mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and so on, had passed through it all in preceding generations until time reached backwards to the sturdy savage who asked no questions of any kind, but knocked down the primeval great-grandmother of all, and carried her off to his hole in the rock, or into the tree where he had made his nest.  Why should not the coming question announce itself by stirring in the pulses and thrilling in the nerves of the descendant of all these grandmothers?

She was leaning imperceptibly towards him, drawn by the mere blind elemental force, as the plummet was attracted to the side of Schehallion.  Her lips were parted, and she breathed a little faster than so healthy a girl ought to breathe in a state of repose.  The steady nerves of William Murray Bradshaw felt unwonted thrills and tremors tingling through them, as he came nearer and nearer the few simple words with which he was to make Myrtle Hazard the mistress of his destiny.  His tones were becoming lower and more serious; there were slight breaks once or twice in the conversation; Myrtle had cast down her eyes.

“There is but one word more to add,” he murmured softly, as he bent towards her—­

A grave voice interrupted him.  “Excuse me, Mr. Bradshaw,” said Master Bytes Gridley, “I wish to present a young gentleman to my friend here.  I promised to show him the most charming young person I have the honor to be acquainted with, and I must redeem my pledge.  Miss Hazard, I have the pleasure of introducing to your acquaintance my distinguished young friend, Mr. Clement Lindsay.”

Once mere, for the third time, these two young persons stood face to face.  Myrtle was no longer liable to those nervous seizures which any sudden impression was liable to produce when she was in her half-hysteric state of mind and body.  She turned to the new-comer, who found himself unexpectedly submitted to a test which he would never have risked of his own will.  He must go through it, cruel as it was, with the easy self-command which belongs to a gentleman in the most trying social exigencies.  He addressed her, therefore, in the usual terms of courtesy, and then turned and greeted Mr. Bradshaw, whom he had never