"You--don't--like--my engagement!" Elizabeth declared slowly.
Reproachful tears stood in her eyes; she fastened her dress with
indignant fingers. "I think you are perfectly horrid not to be
sympathetic. It's very important to a girl to get engaged and
have a ring."

"It's very pretty," David managed to say.

"Pretty? I should say it was pretty! It cost fifty dollars! Blair
said so. David, what on earth is the matter! Don't you like me
being engaged?"

"Oh, it's all right," he evaded. He shut his eyes, which were
still watering from that sour grape, but even with closed eyes he
saw again that soft place where Blair's ring hung, warm and
secret; the pain below his own breast-bone was very bad for a
minute, and the hot fragrance of the heliotrope seemed
overpowering. He swallowed hard, then looked at one of Mr.
Ferguson's pigeons, walking almost into the arbor. The pigeon
stopped, hesitated, cocked a ruby eye on the two humans on the
wooden seat, and fluttered back into the sunny garden.

"Why, you _mind_!" Elizabeth said, aghast.

"Oh, it's nothing to me," David managed to say; "course, I don't
care. Only I didn't know you liked Blair so much; so it was a--a
surprise," he said miserably.

Elizabeth's consternation was beyond words. There was a
perceptible moment before she could find anything to say. "Why, I