Presently he asked, as he toyed with her small fingers, "Where got you all these different rings, little one?" and a note almost of jealousy sounded in his voice. "Here be many pretty brilliants--I thought maids in this country never wore such. How comes such a baby as you with a ring like this?" And he lifted her hand to look at the one which had attracted his special notice. "My father gave it to me," she said quietly; "it was my mother's--whom I never saw." He pressed his lips to the sparkling circlet. "My little wife, I'll be mother, father--all things else to you. All of them together could not love you more truly and sacredly than do I. Ah, my darling, you have but poor knowledge of the way I love you, and how highly I prize your esteem. How can you, after the rough wooing to which I treated you?" Then he whispered, "And where is the ruby ring?" He felt her head stir uneasily against his shoulder, "Surely you did not throw it away?" he asked after a moment's waiting. Dorothy laughed, softly and happily. "You told me that night at Master Weeks'," she whispered, "that you did not believe what my lips said, but what my eyes had shown you." "Aye, so I did, and so I thought when I spoke. But until now I've been tossed about with such conflicting thoughts as scarce to know what to think." "That may be so," she said, sitting erect to look at him. "But, believing what you read in my eyes then and before, think you I would throw away the ring?" "Then where is it?" he asked again, smiling at her earnestness. For answer she raised her hands to her neck, and undoing the fastening of a gold chain, drew it, with the ring strung upon it, from where they had rested, and laid them both in his hand. His fingers closed quickly over them as he exclaimed, "Was there ever such a true little sweetheart?" Then lifting her into his lap, he said, "You have never yet said to me in words that you really love me. Tell me so now--say it!" "Think you that you have need for words?" A bit of her old wilfulness was now showing in her laughing eyes. "Nay--truly no need, after what you have done for me, and have said you would go home with me. But there's a wish to hear such words, little one, and to hear you speak my name--which, now that I think of it, I verily believe you do not even know." She nodded smilingly, but did not answer. "What is it?" he asked coaxingly, as he would have spoken to a child. "Ah--I know it." And she laughed teasingly. "Then say it," he commanded with mock fierceness. "Say it this minute, or I'll--" But her soft palm was against his lips, cutting short his threat. "It is--Kyrle," she said demurely. "Aye, so it is, and I never thought it could sound so sweet. Now say the rest of it--there's a good child. Ah, little one," he exclaimed with sudden passion, "I can scarcely yet believe all this is true. Lay all doubt at rest forever by telling me you love me!"