"Ho! ho! ho! How innocent we are! how proper all of a sudden! Can you look us in the face and say you have not said as nearly that as you dared--that you have not deliberately disguised your true sentiments?" "I can! I do! I have not written a single word this morning with which you could find fault!" cried Nan, with a boldness which betrayed her to her sharp-witted adversaries, for the cry was immediately raised-- "She hasn't written at all! She has been sitting dreaming about _him_ instead." "I think of thee by morn, my love!" chanted Kitty, rolling her eyes to the ceiling with a ridiculous affectation of sentiment; while Agatha and Christabel went through a pantomime of rapturous greeting, at which Nan laughed in unperturbed enjoyment. She had served a long apprenticeship to her sisters' teasing ways, and was too happy in her engagement to keep up any pretence of indifference. Nan, indeed, won universal admiration in the character of an engaged girl, for there was something inexpressibly winsome in her transparent enjoyment of her own happiness. She loved her future husband with all her heart, and saw no reason why she should feign an indifference which she was so far from feeling. When Gervase arrived in person shortly after lunch, she went flying to meet him, and came back hanging on his arm, her face sparkling with happiness and contentment. "He has come! He has come! Here he is!" she cried, in tones of triumph; and Gervase was promptly surrounded by his sisters-in-law-to- be, and escorted round the house to see the preparations for to-morrow's ceremony. He said little, for the solemnity of the occasion had already laid its sobering touch upon him, but his eyes glowed, and every time he looked at Nan there came an expression into his face so sweet, so true, so tender, that Maud could not see it and keep back the tears. She was in a supersensitive mood this afternoon, for not only did the parting with her beloved sister lie ahead, but also a meeting of even more importance. Ned Talbot was to be Gervase's best man, and was even now at the Grange, waiting only to greet his host, before coming to pay his first visit for nearly two years. The winter before he had received an invitation to Thurston House, but it had been refused; and even after that formal intimation that the way was open, he had delayed his coming, modesty and self-distrust alike combining to make him dread that final putting to the test which should "win or lose it all." How much Miss Nan had to do with the choosing of the "best man" is one of those secrets which are best left alone. But presently there he came, walking across the lawn towards the spot where the tea-table was laid, just as he had done on another afternoon years ago; and there sat Maud, once more busying herself with the tea-cups to hide her confusion, though of a different and far happier description.