said Winsome sadly, yet bravely and determinedly.

Yet she looked as bright and sunshiny as her own name, as if God
had just finished creating her that minute, and had left the
Sabbath silence of thanksgiving in her eyes. Ralph Peden may be
forgiven if he did not attend much to what she said. As long as
Winsome was in the world, he would love her just the same,
whatever she said.

"What the cloud is I cannot tell," she went on; "but my
grandfather once said that it would break on whoever loved me--
and--and I do not want that one to be you."

Ralph, who had kept her hand a willing prisoner, close and warm in
his, would have come nearer to her.

He said: "Winsome, dear" (the insidious wretch! he thought that,
because she was crying, she would not notice the addition, but she
did)--"Winsome, dear, if there be a cloud, it is better that it
should break over two than over one."

"But not over you," she said, with a soft accent, which should
have been enough, for any one, but foolish Ralph was already fixed
on his own next words:

"If you have few to love you, let me be the one who will love you
all the time and altogether. I am not afraid; there will be two of
us against the world, dear."

Winsome faltered. She had not been wooed after this manner before.