“Those are my special favorites,” he answered. “If you wish to read any of them please help yourself.” “I was really hinting at that,” she laughed. “You have roused my curiosity. I want to read what you have read and liked. There, that is the breakfast-bell!” She quickened her step, tripping on ahead of him with a little laugh which held a note of vague uneasiness. Presently she slowed down, and with a look of gentle concern in the glance which she directed to him she faltered: “I hope you won't get angry with my mother for something she is going to inflict on you and me this morning. Being opposed to working on Sunday, she remained up last night and arranged the table for dinner to-day. She has it gleaming like a bank of snow, and fairly covered with evergreens, ferns, and flowers. She insists that we take our breakfast this once in the kitchen. She is afraid we will disarrange something. She thinks a good deal of Mr. Peterson--_Colonel_ Peterson now, for you know the paper yesterday said he was taken on the staff of the Governor. He confided to us some time ago that he had hopes in that direction, having worked hard and pulled wires for the Governor during his recent campaign. On state occasions Mr. Peterson will wear a glittering uniform, carry a sword, and be as stiff as a polished brass poker. Oh, he will like it immensely, but I can never call him 'Colonel.'” “It certainly would not do to put _him_ in the kitchen,” Paul said, significantly; “at least not with his regalia on. Aunt Dilly might spill something on his epaulets.” “I see even you--good as you are--can make sport of people now and then,” Ethel said, her eyes twinkling approvingly. “However, I am not going to let you sit in the kitchen this morning. I'll bring your breakfast and mine out to the table in the summer-house. It will be great fun, won't it?” “I certainly do not consider myself above the kitchen,” he returned, in too bitter a tone to fall well into her forced levity. “I've eaten at second table in a circus dining-tent, with the negro horse-feeders in a gipsy camp, as a beggar at the kitchen door of a farm-house, and barely escaped having my ration pushed through the iron wicket of a prison. I am certainly unworthy of--of the summer-house and such--such gracious company. I mean this--I mean it from the bottom of my heart.” “You sha'n't talk that way--you sha'n't, you sha'n't!” Ethel's eyes flashed and her round, full voice quivered. “You have said yourself that all those unfortunate things were behind you for ever and ever things of the past.” “Except when I need sharp, personal discipline,” he smiled significantly, “and I need that now. I need it to kill blind, hopeless, impossible desire.” “You mean--” But Ethel checked herself. He seemed such a riddle--such a profound, alluring dangerous riddle as he walked beside her with that gray look of desperate renunciation on his sensitive face, beneath the surface of which smoldered unquenchable fires of passion.