"Come and look in this jeweller's shop-window," he said, "and tell me whether you are fond of trinkets." "Very fond," she answered, "and I often look in here." "Don't you want to have some of the pretty things?" "I should, I dare say, if I had any money. But I have never had any jewelry except my dear mother's gold watch and chain. I hope I shall never part with that; but I don't wear it, because it is a great deal out of repair, and I can't afford to have it put right." "Come inside and look at the things," he said. "Oh, it's all right," he added, seeing that she hesitated; "I have to buy something for myself!" Once within the jeweller's shop, Wallace approached the attendant and held towards him Laline's hand. "I want a very pretty ring for this young lady," he said in French. "Take off your glove, Laline." In her astonishment she did not notice that, for the first time, he called her by her name without any prefix. Before she could do more than stammer a few words of inquiry, Wallace had deftly unbuttoned her glove and drawn it off, and the smiling attendant was showing her a trayful of rings. "Here is one suitable to mademoiselle," the man suggested, showing her two tiny pearl hearts intertwined with a true-lover's knot. "They are all too large!" Wallace complained. "No--I can't wait for one to be altered. Have you nothing smaller?" A turquoise heart, surrounded by very small diamonds, proved so small that, once it was thrust upon the girl's finger, it could hardly be withdrawn. Wallace beat the price down to a hundred francs, and paid the money over the counter before Laline could do more than gasp an astonished protest. "Now that you are formally engaged to me," he said, "I may as well order the wedding-ring, too." This he proceeded to do, and, having at length discovered one of suitable smallness, he slipped the little parcel into his pocket, after paying for it, and left the shop, drawing Laline's arm through his in an authoritative manner as he did so. "We will fetch your father," he said, "and we will all dine in the town together to celebrate our engagement." "But, Mr. Armstrong," gasped Laline, "you must be in fun! Do you know that I am only sixteen?" "Well, plenty of your friends over here get married at sixteen," he returned, "and my own mother was married before her seventeenth birthday!" "But I don't want to marry you!" "Not to go to England, to live in a big, beautiful house under my care and that of my old uncle, one of the worthiest and kindest old gentlemen alive, who is simply longing to welcome you as his daughter, and writes to me about you nearly every day?" "Why, what can you mean?" she was beginning, when he drew from his pocket the letter from his uncle which he had received that morning, and, carefully folding down one portion, held it before her eyes. The lines which the girl read ran thus:--