Here young Breen leaned forward and lifted the bowl nearer to her hand, while I waited for my cup. He had not left her side since Miss Felicia had presented him, so Peter told me afterward. I had evidently interrupted a conversation, for his eyes were still fastened upon hers, drinking in her every word and movement. “And is sugar your cure for disagreeable people, Miss MacFarlane?” I heard him ask under his breath as I stood sipping my tea. “That depends on how disagreeable they are,” she answered. This came with a look from beneath her eyelids. “I must be all right, then, for you only gave me one lump--” still under his breath. “Only one! I made a mistake--” Eyes looking straight into Jack's, with a merry twinkle gathering around their corners. “Perhaps I don't need any at all.” “Yes, I'm sure you do. Here--hold your cup, sir; I'll fill it full.” “No, I'm going to wait and see what effect one lump has. I'm beginning to get pleasant already--and I was cross as two sticks when I--” And then she insisted he should have at least three more to make him at all bearable, and he said there would be no living with him he would be so charming and agreeable, and so the talk ran on, the battledoor and shuttlecock kind of talk--the same prattle that we have all listened to dozens of times, or should have listened to, to have kept our hearts young. And yet not a talk at all; a play, rather, in which words count for little and the action is everything: Listening to the toss of a curl or the lowering of an eyelid; answering with a lift of the hand--such a strong brown hand, that could pull an oar, perhaps, or help her over dangerous places! Then her white teeth, and the way the head bent; and then his ears and how close they lay to his head; and the short, glossy hair with the faintest bit of a curl in it. And then the sudden awakening: Oh, yes--it was the sugar Mr. Breen wanted, of course. What was I thinking of? And so the game went on, neither of them caring where the ball went so that it could be hit again when it came their way. When it was about to stay its flight I ventured in with the remark that she must not forget to give my kindest and best to her good father. I think she had forgotten I was standing so near. “And you know daddy!” she cried--the real girl was shining in her eyes now--all the coquetry had vanished from her face. “Yes--we worked together on the piers of the big bridge over the Delaware; oh, long ago.”