"Why on earth could you not have fallen in love with Dora?" I cry, petulantly, to the back of his head. "She would do you some credit, and she would love you, too. Everyone would envy you if you married Dora, she never says the wrong thing; and she is elegant and very pretty—is she not?"

"Very pretty," replies he, dryly; "almost lovely, I think, with her fair hair and beautiful complexion and sweet smile. Yes, Dora is more than pretty."

"If you admire her so much, why don't you marry her?" say I, sharply. Although I am not in love with Marmaduke, I strongly object to his expressing unlimited admiration for my sister or any other woman.

"Shall I tell you?" says he, suddenly, coming back to me to take me in his arms and strain me close to him. "Because in my eyes you are ten times lovelier. Because your hair, though darker, pleases me more. Because your complexion, though browner, is to me more fair. Because your smile, though less uniformly sweet, is merrier and tenderer, and more lovable. There! have I given you enough reason for the silly preference I feel for a little girl who does not care a straw about me?"

"Oh, yes, I do: I like you very much," I answer greatly mollified. "I do really—better and better every day."

"Do you indeed?" rapturously. "My own darling."

"Yes," I say, in a thoroughly matter-of-fact tone, with a view to bringing him back to earth again without any unnecessary delay. "But how can you be so fond of me, Marmaduke, when you say I am so cross? Now, tell me this," laying the first finger of my right hand upon his lips, and beating time there with it to each of my words: "why did you first take a fancy to me?"

"Just because you are Phyllis: I have no other reason. If you were anyone else, or changed in any way, I would not care in the least for you."

"At that rate we are likely to have a happy time of it," I say, sarcastically, "considering I am never the same for two weeks running, and papa says everyone's disposition undergoes a complete alteration every seven years."

"I'll risk that," says he, laughing. "Seven years are a long way off."

"But I shall change in less than seven years," I say, persistently. "Don't you see? I have done so twice already, at seven, and fourteen, and I shall do so again at twenty-one. Therefore, in four years' time I shall 

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