“Oh, Lord! I shall die!” he gasped, ceasing, and fanning himself with his hand. “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Harrington, faint with mirth, sat down, and Emily, also laughing furiously, scurried over to Wentworth, and shook him till he laughed again, and shook him till, aching with laughter, he implored her to stop. “Well, Emily,” exclaimed Harrington, as she relinquished her hold of her lover, “I declare I never saw you romp before, and I did not think you could.” “’Pon my word, she’s as bad as Muriel,” cried Wentworth, with a comical look of mock anxiety. “I’m afraid her aristocratic morals are getting corrupted by the company she keeps in this house.” “Well, John,” said Emily, a little flushed and panting with her exertions, and laughing in short fits as she spoke, “I believe you are right. Romping is, if not new to me, very unusual. But to-day I am so happy, I hardly know what I am doing. This glad news takes me out of myself completely. Oh, I am so rejoiced! And to think that Muriel never told me! Cunning fox! But I’ll be even with her for it. I see now why she has decked the room with such a wilderness of roses. She is going to make it a fete day in honor of her engagement.” “Why, yes,” said Harrington, starting up. “I didn’t notice all these exquisite flowers before, but I suppose that _is_ the reason why she has filled the library with them.” “You suppose,” said Emily. “Why, don’t you know?” “Not I,” replied Harrington, laughing. “Muriel asked me to come and spend the day with her, and only said she was going to give me an agreeable surprise. She wouldn’t tell me what the agreeable surprise was, but I suppose this is it. How exquisite and sweet they are,” he murmured, bending over a shallow vase of Parian, filled with the roses, and inhaling their delicate fragrance. “When are you to be married, John?” asked Emily. “I declare I don’t know,” said he naively. “I never thought of asking Muriel.” “Never thought—well, that’s a good one!” exclaimed Wentworth. “Why, almost the first thing I asked Emily after our betrothal was”— “Now, Richard,” cried Emily, scampering up to him with a laugh, and sealing his mouth with her hand. Wentworth struggled to get free, and succeeding in a minute, seized her hands, and held them, she, in turn, endeavoring to get them upon his mouth again. “Hear me, for I will speak!” he declaimed, with serio-comic dignity. “The first thing I asked Emily, John, was—when are we to be married?” “And what did she say?” inquired Harrington, amusedly. “She said October, John,” replied Emily, laughing. “He shan’t tell you. I’ll tell you myself. Yes, John, we are to be married in October. See my betrothal ring. Is it not beautiful?” He took the fair hand in his, and looked at the exquisite opal, whose soft, clouded flames of iridescent color shone on her finger.