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