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234 She told him so, and again she held up her face baby fashion for a kiss.

He kissed her with more lingering tenderness than he had done the night before. "Elsie," he said, "there's one thing I want you to understand. Your happiness is first of all things to me; far, far beyond my own. You have given yourself generously, my darling, and you say you won't make any reservations. Well, this is what I want you really to take in and think over. If ever you have any doubts or regrets; if ever you get to feel that you'd be happier with another man, you are as free as though this had never been put on your finger. You've only got to tell me. I'll never reproach you, or make it hard for you. I'll help you all I can and in whatever way I can—if not as your lover and husband, then as your brother."

The tears were in Elsie's eyes. "Frank," she said, "we will never speak again of what I told you the other night. We turn over the leaf, and begin a new page from to-day." Then, as if determined that there should not be any more sentiment, she rattled on about her afternoon's visitors, and Mrs. Jem's cordiality, and the coming visit to the Luya, and the picnic which Frank had promised her.

There was one ordeal which Elsie had to face, and which she dreaded more than anything connected with her engagement. This was the meeting with Blake. The Prince went away the next day, and Blake, in his capacity of minister, went with the Government House party and the officials, and the great people of Leichardt's Town, to see him on board the man-of-war in the bay. Elsie did not go, though upon this occasion she had been invited, and the Prince expressed deep regret at her absence. Ina went with the Waveryngs, as in duty bound, and had the pleasure of discussing her sister's engagement with Lord Astar and receiving his congratulations. She would gladly have avoided him, but it was hardly possible, and Ina did not know what had taken place at the Government House ball. She had only a vague feeling, founded upon something which Lord Horace had indignantly reported of the club gossip, that