She looked at him radiant, half incredulous--the pious wish shining in her eyes. "Oh, Max!" she cried amazed, "has it come to you too, then? Has Our Lady----" But Max shook his head. "Your Lady is not my lady," he gently confessed. "Oh!" her voice went down into the deeps of despondency. "Oh! is that what you mean?" A solemn nod from Max informed her that it was. "You always told me that it would happen some day." "I hoped I should have gone." "And I," said Max, "am glad that you have not. Selfish of me, isn't it?" Then he kissed her hand again. She began a homely mopping of her face. "Then it doesn't matter how I look now?" she commented, and paused. "How am I looking?" "Well, and as dear as ever," he replied. "That isn't what I wanted to know. You know it isn't." "You are looking," he said, "just two evening moons older than when I saw you last." "What have evening moons got to do with it?" "They are your most becoming time." She took the compliment with a sigh and a smile; then with an air of resignation sat down. "Who is she?" she asked abruptly. "I haven't a ghost of a notion. We haven't been properly introduced, she hasn't encouraged me, I haven't said a word, and I'm not to go near her any more." This for a start. The Countess Hilda became deeply interested, and very much alarmed. "Then it isn't a princess?" she cried in consternation, "she isn't royalty?" "Oh, no," said Max, "far from it. She is what you call a sister of mercy, and 'sister'--horrible word--is the only thing I am allowed to call her; she is a sealed casket without a handle." "Oh, Max," cried his Countess, "don't do it, don't do it; it's wickedness! _I_ didn't matter; but this--oh, Max, you don't know what a grief and disappointment you'll be to me if you----" "Dearly beloved friend," interrupted Max, "do give me credit for a morality not very greatly inferior to your own. After all I am your pupil." "But you can't _marry_ her?" cried the Countess. "Saving your presence, I mean to," asseverated Max. "You! Where will the Crown go?" "Charlotte will have three inches taken out of its rim and will fit it far better than I should--that is if anybody is so foolish as to object to my marrying where I please." "Then in Heaven's name," cried the Countess, "why in all these years haven't you married me?" Max smiled; they were back into easy relations once more. This was the lady with whom he had never spent a dull day. "I did not wish to give you the pain of refusing me," said he. "Had I asked you you would have said that I was far too young to know my mind, and that you yourself were too old." "Yes, I should," she admitted, "but you should have left me to say it." Then she returned to her original bewilderment. "But, my dear boy, if she is a sister of mercy she has taken vows."