Darsie wondered if a "worse cropper" might not possibly be a less serious ill than persistent slacking and irresponsibility; but now that the bad news was out, Ralph was fast regaining his composure. "I'll turn out all right yet, Darsie, you'll see. The tenants like me. I'll settle down and make a first-rate squire when my time comes. And I'll make up to you then for all this worry and bother." For a moment his voice was significantly tender, then the recollection of his present difficulty swept over him once more, and he added hastily: "You'll-- you'll break it to the mater, won't you? About that money, I mean. She'll take it best from you--" Darsie rose from her seat, and stood before him, tall and white in the moonlight. "No!" she said clearly. "I will not. You must make your own confession. Things have been made easy for you all your life, Ralph. Now you must fight for yourself." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ralph bore no malice; even his momentary irritation at finding himself, as he considered, "left in the lurch," lasted but a few moments after his return to the hall. Darsie would rather have had it last a little longer. To see an unclouded face, to catch the echo of merry laughter within ten minutes of a humiliating confession, seemed but another instance of instability of character. It seemed literally impossible for Ralph to feel deeply on any subject for more than a few moments at a time; nevertheless, such was the charm of his personality that she felt both pleased and flattered when twelve o'clock approached and he came smilingly forward to lead her to her place in the great ring encircling the whole room. "I must have you and mother--one on either side," he said, and as they crossed the floor together Darsie was conscious that every eye in the room followed them with a smiling significance. The young Squire, and the pretty young lady who was his sister's friend--a nice pair they made, to be sure! Every brain was busy with dreams of the future, weaving romantic plans, seeing in imagination other scenes like the present, with Darsie in the place of hostess. She knew it, divined instinctively that Ralph knew it too, felt the recognition of it in the grip of Noreen's hand, in the tender pathos of Mrs Percival's smile. And once again Darsie wondered, and doubted, and feared and felt the weight of invisible chains. There are moments, however, when doubts and fears are apt to be swept away in a rush of overwhelming emotions, and one of those is surely the beginning of a new year. To be young and pretty; to be by general acceptance the queen of the evening--no normal girl could help being carried away by such circumstances as these! When the last chime of the twelve rang slowly out, and the audience with one accord burst into the strains of "Auld Lang Syne," Darsie's eyes shone with excitement, and she returned with unction the pressure of Ralph's fingers.