"Strammers," said she with decision, "wait for me in the rose-garden, and speak no single word to anybody until I see you again. You have made a great mistake." The man obediently retired, after saluting me with an air of slightly dubious apology. He was not yet convinced that I had not been after his wretched French pears. But with the withdrawal of this Strammers Lady Mary's manner changed. She became frightened and backed away from me, still holding the gardener's blunderbuss. "O sir," she cried in a beautiful agitation, "I beg of you to leave at once. Oh, please!" But here I saw it was necessary to treat the subject in a bold Irish way. "I'll not leave, Lady Mary," I answered. "I was brought here by force, and only force can make me withdraw." A glimmer of a smile came to her face, and she raised the blunderbuss, pointing it full at my breast. The mouth was still the width of a water-jug, and in the fair inexperienced hands of Lady Mary it was like to go off at any moment and blow a hole in me as big as a platter. "Charming mistress," said I, "shoot!" For answer she suddenly flung the weapon to the grass, and, burying her face in her hands, began to weep. "I'm afraid it's l-l-loaded," she sobbed out. In an instant I was upon my knees at her side and had taken her hand. Her fingers resisted little, but she turned away her head. "Lady Mary," said I softly, "I'm a poor devil of an Irish adventurer, but--I love you! I love you so that if I was dead you could bid me rise! I am a worthless fellow; I have no money, and my estate you can hardly see for the mortgages and trouble upon it; I am no fine suitor, but I love you more than them all; I do, upon my life!" "Here approaches Strammers in quest of his blunderbuss," she answered calmly. "Perhaps we had better give it to him." I sprang to my feet, and, sure enough, the thick-headed ninepin of a gardener was nearing us. "Don't ye trust 'im, your la'ship!" he cried. "I caught 'im in a tree, I did, and he be a bad lot!" Lady Mary quelled him, and he at once went away with his blunderbuss, still muttering his many doubts. But still one cannot drop a love declaration and pick it up again with the facility of a tailor resuming his work on a waistcoat. One can't say: "Where was I? How far had I gone before this miserable interruption came?" In a word I found mysef stammering and stuttering and wasting moments too precious for words. "Lady Mary--" I began. "Lady Mary--I love you, Lady Mary! Lady Mary--" It was impossible for me to depart from this rigmarole and express the many things with which my heart was full. It was a maddening tongue-tie. The moments seemed for me the crisis of my existence, and yet I could only say, "Lady Mary, I love you!" I know that in many cases this statement has seemed to be sufficient, but as a matter of fact I was full of things to say, and it was plain to me that I was losing everything through the fact that my silly tongue clung to the roof of my mouth.