Silence. If there is any silent moment in the throbbing summer. Above them the faint music of the leaves, below the breathing of the flowers, the hum of insects. All the air is full of the sweet warblings of innumerable songsters. Mingling with these is the pleasant drip, drip of the falling water. A great lazy bee falls, as though no longer able to sustain its mighty frame, right into Miss Massereene's lap, and lies there humming. With a little start she shakes it off, almost fearing to touch it with her dainty rose-white fingers. Thus rudely roused, she speaks: "Are you asleep?" she asks, not turning her head in her companion's direction. "No," coldly; "are you?" "Yes, almost, and dreaming." "Dreams are the children of an idle brain," quotes he, somewhat maliciously. "Yes?" sweetly. "And so you really have read your Shakespeare? And can actually apply it every now and then with effect, to the utter confusion of your friends? But I think you might have spared _me_. Teddy!" bending forward and casting upon him a bewitching, tormenting, adorable glance from under her dark lashes, "if you bite your moustache any harder it will come off, and then what will become of me?" With a laugh Luttrell flings away the fern he has been reducing to ruin, and rising, throws himself upon the grass at her feet. "Why don't I hate you?" he says, vehemently. "Why cannot I feel even decently angry with you? You torment and charm in the same breath. At times I say to myself, 'She is cold, heartless, unfeeling,' and then a word, a look--Molly," seizing her cool, slim little hand as it lies passive in her lap, "tell me, do you think you will ever--I do not mean to-morrow, or in a week, or a month, but in all the long years to come, do you think you will ever love me?" As he finishes speaking, he presses his lips with passionate tenderness to her hand. "Now, who gave you leave to do that?" asks Molly, _a propos_ of the kissing. "Never mind: answer me." "But I do mind very much indeed. I mind dreadfully." "Well, then, I apologize, and I am very sorry, and I won't do it again: is that enough?" "No, the fact still remains," gazing at her hand with a little pout, as though the offending kiss were distinctly visible; "and I don't want it." "But what can be done?" "I think--you had better--take it back again," says she, the pretended pout dissolving into an irresistible smile, as she slips her fingers with a sudden unexpected movement into his; after which she breaks into a merry laugh." "And now tell me," he persists, holding them close prisoners, and bestowing a loving caress upon each separately. "Whether I love you? How can I, when I don't know myself? Perhaps at the end I may be sure. When I lie a-dying you must come to me, and bend over me, and say, 'Molly Bawn, do you love me?' And I shall whisper back with my last breath, 'yes' or 'no,' as the case may be." "Don't talk of dying," he says, with a shudder, tightening his clasp.