I do better than this, if it would please him? What could I do better than devote my life to him?'

Some light of the thought that was in both their minds must have passed from the eyes of one to the eyes of the other.

'Do you know what people have been saying of us, Geraldine?' he asked, and he took her hand in his.

She answered No, but she could not keep from blushing.

They say I am very fond of you, my dear, and that I want to marry you. I don't wonder at their saying it, Geraldine; although it made me angry on your account. Why should a girl like you marry a man like me? You would look for twenty times my merits and half my years; wouldn't you?'

He had taken both her hands in his now, and he looked appealingly into her eyes. There was a moment of silence. He waited

patiently. He knew she understood him. She could hardly speak.

The tumult in her

fighting soul' was too much for her as yet; and still, she had been expecting this, somehow, for many minutes before Marion's words were spoken. Spoken as they were, and by him, the words were a proposal of marriage.

'You don't answer,' Marion said; you are not angry with me, Geraldine?'

'Oh, no-how could I be angry? Yes, if you would really like it—if it would please you -to have me for your wife, I will marry you, Captain Marion, with-with pleasure.'

A strange, keen pang went through Marion's heart-a mingled joy and pain. Geraldine, then, was willing to marry him, at his age; that beautiful, proud girl! But she did not love him. She would marry him to please him, and also, he was sure, to be free for ever from the importunity of one whom she feared. She did not pretend to love him; she had

made her meaning clear enough in the fewest words-if he liked her enough to make her his wife, he might have her. Well, it ought to be happiness to him to have her on any terms. She would make his life happy. His daughters could not make him happy any more. His hopes that way had all gone.

'You are sure that you are quite willing, Geraldine? I don't ask you if you love me;

I suppose I have passed the age for being loved

'I am very fond of you,' Geraldine truly said.

'And you are really willing?'

'I am really willing. I am very grateful.' He pressed her hand to his lips. Somehow, he did not venture to kiss her, although she had promised to be his wife. But Geraldine drew towards him and, her face crimsoning all over, she kissed him. He grew as red as a boy might do.

'My sweet, darling girl!' was all he could say for a moment. Then he told her that he would leave her to herself to think this all over; and he was on the brink of saying that if she found she did not quite like it he would not hold her to her word. But he stopped himself, remembering that this might seem almost an insult to the girl.

"What will your mother say?' he asked. 'She will be glad,' Geraldine answered simply.

This was a relief and a joy to Marion. He kept his word, and left Geraldine for the moment. When their conversation was beginning, Marion would have held any man or woman mad who suggested the possibility of its ending as it did-of Geraldine Rowan consenting to be his wife, or, indeed, of his allowing himself to ask her.

CHAPTER XXVII.

'AN' 'TWERE TO GIVE AGAIN-BUT 'TIS

NO MATTER.'

GERALDINE sat for a while listless and thoughtful. The excitement of her sudden impulse had gone from her and left her in a condition of mental reaction, almost of collapse. She was not sorry for what she had done. She still felt that it was the right thing to do. In that, as in many other events of her life, she had acted entirely on impulse, and she had no misgivings as yet about this impulse. It would please Captain Marion, she thought, and make him happy; and what better use could she turn her life to than to