He reddens visibly as he hearkens. “I _dare_ not call you anything else, Miss Mirabelle!” he almost whispers, his heart throbbing violently under his tweed waistcoat. “There it is again! _Miss_ Mirabelle! why can’t you say ‘Mirabelle,’ when--when--we are _quite_ alone?” she asks impatiently, throwing a covert glance towards the other riders to see if they are out of earshot. “Oh! _I couldn’t!_” he murmurs very low--shy of speech--but his large hazel eyes are eloquent enough. “I would as soon think of calling the angels by their names!” he goes on nervously. “I have heard of Michael as the name of an archangel, but I don’t think the female angels _have_ any names,” Baby says irreverently. “Do you think _me_ an angel? because I’m not, not the very least bit in the world. The governor calls me a little devil, and I know my sisters don’t think me an angel!” she laughs. “You are an angel to _me_, anyhow!” A little pause, while she looks straight into his eyes, with the prettiest, faintest pink colour creeping over her cheeks. “I say, Hargreaves, how long are we going on like this?” she asks abruptly. He gazes at her amazed, and Baby laughs again, a little, low, musical laugh that entrances him. “I mean that--that--as we care for one another, why should we pretend not to?” she asks in a hushed voice, putting her hand on her pommel, for the chesnut pricks up his ears and frightens her. Hargreaves’ hand is on hers in a second. He is really rather nervous about the horse after Challen’s warning, and besides, it is Heaven to him to feel the soft velvety skin of the dainty little hand that gleams up like a morsel of alabaster statuary under the sunlight. “Miss Mirabelle, for God’s sake don’t go and make me forget what I am. I try night and day to remember the distance between us, and though I could go down on my knees and worship you all my life--though I could die for you willingly--_willingly_, I know I dare not _live_ for you! I love you--_there!_ Only God knows _how_ I love you, but it isn’t a love like a fellow gives to his sweetheart! It’s a love like a faithful dog, that would lick your pretty hand and be content; that would watch over you so that no harm came near you; that would just lie down and die by the side of _your_ grave.” Baby listens with an involuntary tear twinkling in her eye. She is only seventeen, but she has been too long in a Belgravian world not to know that this young fellow loves her with a beautiful, unselfish, honest love--the like of which no Belgravian fine gentleman would feel. This primitive, self-abnegatory sort of courtship is so novel that it has a glamour for her, and Baby is--undoubtedly--a little fast. “I would rather _live_ and find out how much you _do_ love me, Hargreaves,” she answers, with a tender smile; “do you think you love me to--to--the extent--of--marrying me?” “Miss Mirabelle!” he gasps.