But he had no one he could draw inspiration from. Imagination was therefore allowed to run riot, and the most unfavourable result anticipated, rather than the sensible advice of Mrs. Ranger being allowed to have its way. Before retiring for the night, he had so far overcome his scruples—or shall we rather call them doubts?—as to resolve that he would make another effort on the morrow to see her, and learn the fate that was in store for him. When Mary joined the couple in the sitting-room below, some ten to fifteen minutes later, there was a mischievous gleam in her sparkling eyes, and slightly nervous but mirthful twitching about the corners of her pretty lips, which betrayed the humour she had been indulging at the expense of her love-sick swain. A broad smile was upon Ranger’s face, but his wife, looking up from the work she had in hand, merely remarked, "Mary, I could not help noticing how disappointed John seemed with your message." "Indeed? I don’t see why he should be," was Mary’s reply, in a tone of assumed ignorance which was far from deceiving the older couple. "He said he should be sorry to bother you, but he had no doubt he should see you before long." "Will he! Perhaps he may or he may not." Then, after a brief pause, she asked, as though anxious the subject should not be dropped, "Did he say what he wanted me for?" "Not likely, child! Did you imagine he would?" "I never took the trouble to think. Why should he not? I have no secrets!" "Are you sure, Mary?" asked Mrs. Ranger, looking round at her with a comical kind of questioning glance. "Oh, dear me, yes!" she replied. "Well, I think I had very little difficulty in reading John’s secret, which I imagine is not much of a secret to you." "I suppose, if I cared to take the trouble, I might guess what brought him here to-night." "No doubt of it, my dear." "And I don’t know any reason why I should hesitate to tell you. The fact is," she added, "a week ago he asked me if I would be his wife." "And what did you tell him?" "That it was a subject I had not thought about, and did not want to." "Of course that was all quite true, Mary?" "I daresay it was," she replied; "at all events, it was as true as most of the things said under such circumstances are." "Did the answer satisfy him?" "Oh, dear no!" she replied, with a laugh. "He wanted a reply in a week." "And you promised to give it?" "No, I did not! I told him if he wanted a different answer to the one I had given, he must let me have a month to consider it." "Well, and what then?" "On his pressing me to be, as he termed it, more reasonable, and to let him know in a week, I promised that I would try what could be done in the time." "And so he came to receive your answer tonight—which you were not prepared to give. Is that it?" "My opinion is," answered Mary, "that a woman gains nothing by making herself too cheap."