his wound.”

“To be sure; I’ve read it all very often. Yes”—and Agatha looked suddenly devoted—“in those dear olden times women fulfilled their mission, and were leeches. We shall never see those days again!”

“Suppose we try,” said Hodmadod, handing a chair to Agatha, dropping into one himself, and drawing close to the fluttered young lady, whose timid eye now and then turned to[Pg 79] the door. “What do you think of that hand, dearest Miss Agatha?” and Sir Arthur gracefully presented his open palm.

[Pg 79]

“Oh! gracious!” cried the young lady, flinging away the anemone, clasping her hands, and looking piteous sorrow. Wherefore? The hand had been blistered; and a little wound—Miss Agatha might have covered it with a guinea, if she had had the coin and the thought about her—lay in the palm.

“Your candid opinion, sweet girl? In its present wounded state—when I say wounded, of course I mean it’s quite as good as ever—I couldn’t offer the hand to a lady?”

“Dear me!” cried Agatha, “what a question! How should I know? But how did it happen?”

“Why, you see, not used to the sort of thing, it was the hay-fork; when I say a hay-fork, I think I may venture to observe”—and here the handsome baronet looked in the glowing face of Agatha, and smiled with all his might—“the dart of Cupid.”

“Dear me!” and Agatha looked at the hurt, with evidently no thought of the figurative weapon that had caused it—“dear me! it must give you dreadful pain.”

“Dreadful! that is, of course, great pleasure. Now, dear young lady, I want you to be my leech.”

“La! Sir Arthur; we don’t live in such times, you know;” and Agatha was delighted.

“As I am determined to offer this hand with all my heart in it—when I say all my heart I mean my title—to a young lady whom you know, and I believe very much respect—as upon that resolution I am a perfect rock—when I say a rock, I mean I am hard upon being happy—why then—”

“I see exactly what you mean, Sir Arthur,” said Agatha, to the rescue.

“That’s delightful. That’s a true woman who, when a man has only half a meaning, supplies the other half. It’s that that makes the full circle of the wedding-ring. When I say the wedding-ring, of 

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