'Please, don't--please, don't,' urged Mary, almost with tears in her tremulous tones. 'Why?' he asked, looking down upon her with a bright and winning smile. 'These initials may be seen.' 'By whom--and what then?' Mary was silent, but thought only of Miss Galloway, though that young lady seldom favoured the woods with her society; and now Colville completed his work with a most orthodox true lovers' knot, Mary growing more and more appalled as it proceeded. 'You have a middle name?' she asked, timidly. 'Every fellow has now-a-days--snobbish, isn't it? In my case I cannot help it.' 'And the middle name?' 'Don't ask it--you know me but as Leslie Colville, and that is my genuine baptismal appelation.' 'This bit of wood engraving may be deuced unfair to _her_ if young Wodrow sees it,' was the not ungenerous thought of Leslie Colville. 'What if Blanche sees it?' was the timid reflection of Mary; thus, mentally, these two were at cross-purposes. 'Do restore to me or cast away that bunch of berries,' she again said to him. 'I cannot think of it; but I shall conceal it, if you will permit me,' said he, as he kissed her little bouquet, and placed it in his breast-pocket. His tenderness seemed very true, but might be--nay, Mary thought, must be--mere flirtation. He had said, 'Ere long I shall get another to plead for me.' Who was that _other_; and to plead for _what_? It was all very mysterious, and for a moment or two Mary felt as one in a dream. Under the old trees where they lingered were cool and grateful shadows, and on the soft breeze from the gardens and shrubberies came the perfume of roses and heliotrope, with the drowsy hum of modulated voices and the music of the band. 'Listen,' said he, touching her hand lightly, while his features brightened; 'do you hear the sweet low air?' 'It is "The Birks of Invermay."' 'How it brings the words of the sweet song back to me-- "It wasna till the pale moonshine Was glancing deep in Mary's e'e; That with a smile she said 'I'm thine,' And ever true to thee will be!" You see how it and the name have impressed me.' 'Don't, please, Captain Colville,' said Mary, withdrawing her hand; 'you should not go on this way. It is not honourable in you, and is annoying to me.' 'What a puzzle you are!' said he, looking at her with undisguised admiration, mingled with--to her annoyance--the slightest _soupçon_ of amusement in his handsome eyes, as she proceeded slowly across the lawn to rejoin the garden-party, from which Mary felt he had purposely lured her. Meanwhile, he was closely scrutinising the soft and downcast face of Mary--downcast because she was too conscious of the fervour of his regard.