we could get the affair over in the chapel--and then you can go back to
the Inn with your certificate--and I can go to Paris--free!" And his
thoughts added, "And even if poor Maurice does die soon, I need fear
nothing!"

Now that their two fates seemed settled, Miss Delburg got out of the
chair and stood up in a dignified way; her soft cheeks were the color of
a glowing pink rose, and her violet eyes shone with fun and excitement,
her little, irregular features and perfect teeth seemed to add to the
infantine aspect of the picture she made in her unfashionable pink
cotton frock. Dress had been strongly discouraged at the Convent, and
was looked upon by Aunt Jemima, a strict New Englander, as a snare of
the devil, but even the garment, in the selecting of which she had had
no hand, seemed to hang with grace upon the child's slim figure.

Not a doubt as to the future clouded her thoughts; it was all a glorious
piece of fun, and of all the daring tricks she had perpetrated at the
Convent to get chocolates, or climb a tree, or have a midnight orgy of
cake and sirop, none had been so exciting as this--to go through the
ceremony of marriage and be free for life!

Her education had been of the most elementary, and the whole aim of
those placed over her had been to keep her as innocent and ignorant as a
child of ten. Not a single problem of life had ever presented itself to
her naturally intelligent mind. She had read no books, conversed with no
grown-up people, played with no one but her companions, three American
girls and a few French ones, and the simple Nuns. And since her
emancipation, she had but wandered in the English lakes with her uncle
and aunt and Samuel Greenbank, and so had come to Arranstoun like any
other tourist to see this famous castle still inhabited after eleven