"What! You've kept my letters? I told you to burn 'em all." "Well, I haven't. I've got 'em all tied up with red ribbon, the colour of my heart's blood, all but those father found." "Yes, that's it. If you'd done as I told you the old man would never have known." "Oh, wouldn't he, Syd? Now say, if you dare, that you didn't write to me to come over so that you might see my darling sweet face again." "Oh, I'm a gentleman, I am. I'm not going to tell any lies. If I said so, I must have been half cracked." "So you were--with love. I've got four letters that say so when you wanted me to go to London and get married." "Yes, I must have been mad, Molly. It's been like a nightmare to me ever since. I wish I'd never seen you." "Oh, oh, oh!" began the pretty little bicyclist, beginning to sob. "Has it come to this so soon?" "Don't--don't--don't cry. The servants'll hear you." "I--I--I can't help it, Syd. Oh, dear, dear! You've broke my heart." "No, I haven't, darling. There, there. Kisses'll mend the place. There--and there--and there." "But you're sorry you met me, and you don't love me a bit. If I'd known what getting married meant you wouldn't have caught me running off on the sly." "Don't--don't cry, I tell you," cried the boy, passionately. "I didn't mean it. You know that I love you awfully, only a man can't help saying things when he's in such a mess. You don't know what my aunt is." "And you don't know what my father is." "Oh, don't I? An old ruffian," added the boy to himself. "Your aunt's only a woman, and she got married herself." "Oh, yes, that's true; but she isn't like other women. She didn't marry for love." "And I don't wonder at it," said the girl, dismally. "Love ain't, as father says, all beer and skittles." "Don't cry, I tell you," said Syd, angrily, as the girl rubbed her eyes, boy-fashion, with the cuffs of her jacket, after a vain attempt to find her handkerchief. "Well, ain't I wiping away the tears, and got no--here, lend us yours, Syd." She snatched the boy's handkerchief out of his breast-pocket, and had a comfortable wipe. "You used to kiss my eyes dry once, when father had been rowing me, Syd." "Yes, and so I will now if you'll go away, darling." "But I'm afraid, Syd. What with the letters, and the races and the people, and the book he's making on Jim Crow he's in such a temper that I thought he'd beat me." "What!" cried Syd, furiously, "strike my wife?" "He didn't, Syd dear; but I thought he would." "An old wretch! I'd kill him!" "No, you wouldn't, Syd dear," said the girl, kittening up to him and rubbing her cheek up against his; "but it's so nice of you to say so, and it makes me feel that you do love your little wifey ever so much." "Of course I do, soft, beautiful little owlet." "Then had I better stay?" "What! Here?"