“No, you shall not buy these.  I am sending them to your mother with my love, to beg pardon for Miss Lavinia and myself, for we’ve been trying to go to Pine Ridge all the week; but this affair has kept me spinning like a top, and when I do stop I expect to fall over with weariness.  I was so sorry about Rockcliffe Commencement.  Some day, perhaps, mamma will have finished bringing me out, and then I can crawl in again where it is quiet, and live.  Ah, you went to the house and saw her, and she said we were going away next week?  I did not know it, but we flit about so one can never tell.  I’ve half a mind to be rebellious and ask to be left here with Lavinia Dorman for guardian, I’m so tired of change.  Yes, I enjoyed my flying trip to the West, in a way, though father only came as far as Chicago with me, but I expect him to-morrow.”

Then the crowd surged along, peering, staring, and feeling, so that it would have blocked the way conspicuously if Bradford had lingered longer.  As he vanished, Monty Bell sauntered up, and, entering the booth, took his place by Sylvia.  Under pretext of good-naturedly saving her fingers from thorns by tying the bouquets for her, kept by her side all the afternoon, and when a lull came at tea time, strolled with her toward the refreshment tent, where he coaxed her to sit down to rest in one of the little recesses that lined the garden wall, where she would be free from the crowd while he brought her some supper.

This she did the more readily because she was really tired, almost to the point of faintness, and even felt grateful when Mr. Bell returned with some dainty food, and sat beside her to hold her plate.  She was so used to seeing him about at all hours, making himself generally useful, that the little attentions he continually showered upon her never held a fragment of personality in her eyes.

Now, however, something familiar in his manner jarred upon her and put her strangely on her guard.  One of the man’s peculiarities was that he had a hypnotic manner, and presently, almost before she could really understand what he was about, he had put his arm around her and was making an easy, take-it-all-for-granted declaration of love.

For an instant she could not believe her ears, and then his tightening clasp brought realization.  Tearing herself away, and dropping her plate with a crash, she faced him with white face and blazing eyes, saying but one word—­“Stop!” in so commanding a tone that even his fluency faltered, and he paused in exceeding amaze at the result of what he had supposed any woman of his set would esteem an honour, much more this strange girl whose mother was engaged so systematically in securing a place at the ladder top.

“If I had understood that your casual politeness to me and usefulness to my mother meant insult such as this, we should have checked it long ago.”

“Insult?” ejaculated Monty Bell, looking over his shoulder, apprehensive lest some one should be within ear-shot, for to be an object of ridicule was the greatest evil that could come to him.  “You don’t understand.  I want you to marry me.”