"How can I tell? I have not taken my eyes from your face yet." "Silly boy, and I have seen all the disimprovements in you long ago. I have also seen that you are wearing an entirely new suit of clothes. Such reckless extravagance! but they are very becoming, and I am fond of light gray, so you are forgiven. Why did you not come sooner? I have been _longing_ for you. Oh, Teddy, I don't like Marcia or grandpapa a bit; and Philip has been absent nearly all the time; you said you would come early." "So I did, by the earliest train; you could hardly have left the house when I arrived, and then I started instantly to find you. My own dear darling," with a sigh of content, "how good it is to see you again, and how well you are looking!" "Am I?" laughing. "So are you, disgracefully well. You haven't a particle of feeling, or you would be emaciated by this time. Now confess you did not miss me at all." "Were I to speak forever, I could not tell you how much. Are you not 'the very eyes of me'?" says the young man, fondly. "That is a very nonsensical quotation," says Molly, gayly. "Were you to see with my eyes, just consider how different everything would appear. Now, for instance, _I_ would never have so far forgotten myself as to fall so idiotically and ridiculously in love, as you did, with beautiful Molly Massereene!" At this little touch of impertinence they both laugh merrily. After which, with some hesitation, and a rather heightened color, Tedcastle draws a case from his pocket, and presents it to her. "I brought you a--a present," he says, "because I know you are fond of pretty things." As she opens the case and sees within it, lying on its purple velvet bed, a large dull gold locket, with a wreath of raised forget-me-nots in turquoises and enamel on one side, she forms her lips into a round "Oh!" of admiration and delight, more satisfactory than any words. "Do you like it? I am so glad! I saw it one day, quite accidentally, in a window, and at once it reminded me of you. I thought it would exactly suit you. Do you remember down by the river-side that night, after our first important quarrel, when I asked you to marry me?" "I remember," softly. "You had forget-me-nots in your hands then, and in your dress. I can never forget you, as you looked at that moment; and those flowers will ever be associated with you in my mind. Surely they are the prettiest that grow. I call them 'my sweet love's flower.'" "How fond you are of me!" she says, wistfully, something like moisture in her eyes, "and," turning her gaze again upon his gift, "you are too good: you are always thinking how to please me. There is only one thing wanting to make this locket perfect," raising her liquid eyes to his again, "and that is your face inside it." At which words, you may be sure, Luttrell is repaid over and over again all the thought and care he has expended on the choosing of the trinket.