A delicious tremor passed through Oliver. He HAD asked her, and she HAD promised! He remembered just the very day, the hour, the minute. That was the bliss of it all! But this he did not tell his mother. He would not hurt her any further now. Some other day he would tell her; when she could see Madge and judge for herself. No, not to-night, and so with the secret untold he kissed her and led her to her room. And yet strange to say it was the one only thing in all his life that he had kept from her. Ah! these mothers! who make lovers of their only sons, dominating their lives! How bitter must be the hours when they realize that another's arms are opening for them! And these boys--what misgivings come; what doubts. How the old walls, impregnable from childhood, begin to crumble! How little now the dear mother knows--she so wise but a few moons since. How this new love steps in front of the old love and claims every part of the boy as its very own. Faithful to her promise, Miss Clendenning waited the next morning for Oliver in her little boudoir that opened out of the library. A bright fire blazed and crackled, sending its beams dancing over the room and lighting up the red curtains that hung behind her writing-desk, its top covered with opened letters--her morning's mail: many bore foreign postmarks, and not a few were emblazoned with rampant crests sunk in little dabs of colored wax. She wore a morning gown of soft white flannel belted in at the waist. Covering her head and wound loosely about her throat was a fluff of transparent silk, half-concealing the two nests of little gray and brown knots impaled on hair-pins. These were the chrysalides of those gay butterfly side-curls which framed her sweet face at night and to which she never gave wing until after luncheon, no matter who called. The silk scarf that covered them this morning was in recognition of Oliver's sex. She had finished her breakfast and was leaning forward in her rocking-chair, her elbows on her knees, her tiny feet resting on the fender. She was watching the fire-fairies at work building up their wonderful palaces of molten gold studded with opals and rubies. The little lady must have been in deep thought, for she did not know Oliver had entered until she felt his arm on her shoulder. "Ah, you dear fellow. No, not there; sit right here on this cricket by my side. Stop, do not say a word. I have been studying it all out in these coals. I know all about it--it is about the mountain girl, this--what do you call her?" "Miss Grant." "Nonsense! What do YOU call her?" "Madge." "Ah, that's something like it. And you love her?" "Yes." (Pianissimo.) "And she loves you?" "YES." (Forte.) "And you have told her so?" "YES!" (Fortissimo.) "Whew!" Miss Clendenning caught her breath and gave a little gasp. "Well, upon my word! You don't seem to have lost any time, my young Romeo. What does her father say?" "He doesn't know anything about it."