"Shall I tell you?" says he, suddenly, coming back to me to take me in his arms and strain me close to him. "Because in my eyes you are ten times lovelier. Because your hair, though darker, pleases me more. Because your complexion, though browner, is to me more fair. Because your smile, though less uniformly sweet, is merrier and tenderer, and more lovable. There! have I given you enough reason for the silly preference I feel for a little girl who does not care a straw about me?" "Oh, yes, I do: I like you very much," I answer greatly mollified. "I do really--better and better every day." "Do you indeed?" rapturously. "My own darling." "Yes," I say, in a thoroughly matter-of-fact tone, with a view to bringing him back to earth again without any unnecessary delay. "But how can you be so fond of me, Marmaduke, when you say I am so cross? Now, tell me this," laying the first finger of my right hand upon his lips, and beating time there with it to each of my words: "why did you first take a fancy to me?" "Just because you are Phyllis: I have no other reason. If you were any one else, or changed in any way, I would not care in the least for you." "At that rate we are likely to have a happy time of it," I say, sarcastically, "considering I am never the same for two weeks running, and papa says every one's disposition undergoes a complete alteration every seven years." "I'll risk that," says he, laughing. "Seven years are a long way off." "But I shall change in less than seven years," I say, persistently. "Don't you see? I have done so twice already, at seven, and fourteen, and I shall do so again at twenty-one. Therefore, in four years' time I shall be a different person altogether, and you will cease to care for me." "I shall always adore you, Phyllis," declares my lover, earnestly, "whether we live together for four or fourteen or one hundred and fourteen years." This leaves nothing more to be said, so I am silent for a moment or two, and gaze at him with some degree of pride as he stands beside me, with his blue eyes, tender and impassioned--as handsome a man as ever made vain love to a graceless maiden. Still, admirable as he is, I have no desire for him to grow demonstrative so soon again; therefore continue the conversation hastily. "Were you never in love before?" I ask, without motive. It occurs to me that like a flash a faint change crosses his face. "All men have fancies," he answers, and something tells me he is evading a strict reply. "I don't mean a fancy: I mean a real attachment. Did you ever ask any woman except me to be your wife?" "Why?" he asks, with an attempt at laughter that ends in dismal failure beneath my remorseless eyes. "Will you throw me over if I say, 'Yes?'" "No, of course not. But I think you might have told me before. Here have you been pretending all along you never loved any one but me, and now I discover accidentally that long before you knew me you had broken your heart over dozens of women."