"My dear Sophia," said he, with a twinkle in his mild blue eyes that had puzzled her from the day when he first put a decorous arm round her waist. "My dear Sophia, if you knew what a ding-dong scrap of fiends went on inside me before I could bring myself to vow to be a virtuous milk-and-water parson, your hair, which is as long and beautiful as ever, would stand up straight on end." Mrs. Conover sighed. "I give you up." "It's too late," said the Dean. * * * * * The Manningtrees, father and mother and son, were gone. Doggie bore the triple loss with equanimity. Then Peggy Conover, hitherto under the eclipse of boarding-schools, finishing schools and foreign travel, swam, at the age of twenty, within his orbit. When first they met, after a year's absence, she very gracefully withered the symptoms of the cousinly kiss, to which they had been accustomed all their lives, by stretching out a long, frank, and defensive arm. Perhaps if she had allowed the salute, there would have been an end of the matter. But there came the phenomenon which, unless she was a minx of craft and subtlety, she did not anticipate; for the first time in his life he was possessed of a crazy desire to kiss her. Doggie fell in love. It was not a wild consuming passion. He slept well, he ate well, and he played the flute without a sigh causing him to blow discordantly into the holes of the instrument. Peggy vowing that she would not marry a parson, he had no rivals. He knew not even the pinpricks of jealousy. Peggy liked him. At first she delighted in him as in a new and animated toy. She could pull strings and the figure worked amazingly and amusingly. He proved himself to be a useful toy, too. He was at her beck all day long. He ran on errands, he fetched and carried. Peggy realized blissfully that she owned him. He haunted the Deanery. One evening after dinner the Dean said: "I am going to play the heavy father. How are things between you and Peggy?" Marmaduke, taken unawares, reddened violently. He murmured that he didn't know. "You ought to," said the Dean. "When a young man converts himself into a girl's shadow, even although he is her cousin and has been brought up with her from childhood, people begin to gossip. They gossip even within the august precincts of a stately cathedral." "I'm very sorry," said Marmaduke. "I've had the very best intentions." The Dean smiled. "What were they?" "To make her like me a little," replied Marmaduke. Then, feeling that the Dean was kindly disposed, he blurted out awkwardly: "I hoped that one day I might ask her to marry me." "That's what I wanted to know," said the Dean. "You haven't done it yet?" "No," said Marmaduke. "Why don't you?" "It seems taking such a liberty," replied Marmaduke.