She hadn't replied to his inquiry about its coming or not to the same thing as a proved case that he should have entertained the fancy of assurances--she had but left the appeal in the air. This, however, hadn't in the least stamped her to his vision as stupid; he had only felt at once how many still other things he could put to her. Here was one as to which he should really like her weight thrown if she would let it be and since Perry had named his occasion; as to which too the idea of the explanatory grew in attraction instant. Clearly she didn't yet understand, none the less, too many things at once awaiting her, and the accommodation to Perry, let alone to herself, not having had time to profit by what had at first been said. Here was something of a tangle, but she cut the knot, after another moment, by the light force of her own readiest pressure. "Do you like my mother and my sister now that you've seen them?" Ralph stared, for beautifully important as this point had been she suddenly made it more so. "Why, cousin, I'm here as Molly's true lover--to marry her, you know, as soon as ever the banns can be published and her wedding-gown bought: so that what sort of a figure should I cut if she wasn't as dear to me as life? She is greater even than I dreamed." "'Greater'----?" She hung again on this term as she had done before; but it was as if something had happened since then, and she now met his idea in time. "Won't it be that you'll make her great?" "I hope with all my heart I shall make her happy, but she's splendid," Ralph gravely, almost sententiously, said, "beyond any power of mine to show her off." He clung to his gravity, which somehow steadied him--so odd it was that the sense of her understanding wouldn't be abated, which even a particular lapse, he could see . . . NOTES FOR THE SENSE OF THE PAST