“Laurie, do you mean it? Do you love me again? Will you renew your promise? Shall I wear your ring again?” “Yes, yes,” he muttered desperately, thinking in agony of the little hand now cold in death that wore his ring. It was useless to tell Lelia anything about that. He could buy her another one just as costly, that would be enough. She smiled faintly, joyfully, and eagerly swallowed the antidote he held to her lips with a shaking hand. CHAPTER XXIII. TWO RINGS. Love and hope had such patent power for good that Lelia had an almost miraculously swift recovery from the effects of the drug she claimed to have taken in her despair at Laurie’s obstinacy. In her joy at his restoration to her sovereignty, and her anxiety to keep a tight rein upon him hereafter, she exerted all her will-power to restrain her imperious nature and fairly astonished the young man with her sweetness and humility. Within a few hours she was seated by his side on the long, Colonial porch, exquisitely dressed, and sparkling with animation, trying to dazzle him with her rare blond beauty, and provoke him to some manifestation of reviving tenderness. But Laurie remained gravely and courteously cold, with a constrained air that was secretly maddening to her love and pride alike. “Oh, Laurie, my darling, how strange you seem--how cold, how altered. Will you never smile on me again?” she sighed gently. “It is scarcely a time for smiles, Lelia, with dear Aunt Cyrilla lying in her room at the point of death,” he gravely replied. “Oh, forgive me, Laurie, I deserve your rebuke! But, indeed, I am not forgetting our dear old aunt. Yet--yet my whole being is jubilant with the joy of winning you once more, dear Laurie! Oh, you cannot guess all I suffered after you left me, the despair, the remorse, the yearning to have you back again. I could have groveled at your feet praying your pardon for my jealous madness! And then, when you returned and repulsed me in bitter pride and anger, it broke my heart. I could not live without you, I determined to end my life. You would have been sorry for your cruelty when you looked on my poor, dead face, would you not, darling? But mama, uneasy over me, came to my room and found out in time what I had done in my desperation. She raised the alarm and brought the doctor. But I would not take his antidotes. I had quite determined on death. I declared to her frankly I would not live except as your dear wife. She went to you, and in your goodness of heart you came and saved me to life and love and happiness again. Oh, Laurie, I will never be jealous and naughty again as long as I live. I will be so grateful and so good you will love me again better than ever before!” Soft, white hands clinging to his, golden locks pressed against his shoulder, upturned blue eyes full of adoration, rose-red lips inviting caresses, how could any man’s heart withstand such charms?