"Then you're not," retorted I, laughing up at him,
"for it happens to be O'Hara--Dawn O'Hara, if ye plaze."

He picked up a trifle that lay on my desk--a pencil,
perhaps, or a bit of paper--and toyed with it, absently,
as though I had not spoken. I thought he had not heard,
and I was conscious of feeling a bit embarrassed, and
very young. Suddenly he raised his smoldering eyes to
mine, and I saw that they had taken on a deeper glow.
His white, even teeth showed in a half smile.

"Dawn O'Hara," said he, slowly, and the name had
never sounded in the least like music before, "Dawn
O'Hara. It sounds like a rose--a pink blush rose that is
deeper pink at its heart, and very sweet."

He picked up the trifle with which he had been toying
and eyed it intently for a moment, as though his whole
mind were absorbed in it. Then he put it down, turned,
and walked slowly away. I sat staring after him like a
little simpleton, puzzled, bewildered, stunned. That had
been the beginning of it all.

He had what we Irish call "a way wid him." I wonder
now why I did not go mad with the joy, and the pain, and
the uncertainty of it all. Never was a girl so dazzled,
so humbled, so worshiped, so neglected, so courted. He
was a creature of a thousand moods to torture one. What
guise would he wear to-day? Would he be gay, or dour, or
sullen, or teasing or passionate, or cold, or tender or