Lancaster's Choice. Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

consider me a bore and a nuisance?"

      "Well," confidingly, "to tell you the truth, we both did—that is, you know, while we were laboring under the very natural mistake that you were a very small baby instead of—a grown-up one. But all that is altered now, of course, since I have met you, Miss West. We shall be only too happy to have you for our compagnon du voyage."

      He was speaking to her quite as if she were his equal, and not the lowly born niece of the housekeeper at his ancestral home. It was impossible to keep that fact in his head. She was so fair, so refined, so well-bred, in spite of the little flashes of spirit indicative of a spoiled child.

      She did not answer, and he continued, pleasantly:

      "I am very sorry for the mistake on my part that caused you so much annoyance. I desire to offer you every possible apology for it."

      She looked up at him quickly. "Oh, I wasn't mad because you thought Leonora West was a baby," she said.

      "Then why—because I thought you were a nurse?"

      "Not that either. I was only amused at those mistakes of yours."

      She paused a moment, then added, with a rising flush:

      "It was for those other words you said."

      "I do not blame you at all. I was a regular brute," said Lancaster, penitently. "Do say that you forgive me, I never should have said it if only I had known."

      "Known what?" she inquired.

      "That you were the baby I had to carry to England. I should have been only too happy to be of service to you. De Vere will be distracted with envy at my privilege. There, I have said several pretty things to you. Will you not forgive me now?"

      "Yes, I will forgive you, but you do not deserve it," answered Leonora. "It was not kind to talk about me so, even if I had been an unconscious baby."

      "It was not," he admitted. "But think a moment, Miss West. I am a bachelor, and I know nothing at all of babies. I have forgotten all the experiences of my own babyhood. I was wretched at the idea of having to convey one of those troublesome little problems across the ocean. I would as soon have been presented with a white elephant. I should have known quite as much of one as the other. Can you find it in your heart to chide me for my reluctance?"

      Leonora reflected, with her pretty brows drawn together.

      "Well, perhaps you are right," she acknowledged, after a moment. "They are troublesome—babies, I mean—I think you called them problems. You were right there, too, for one does not know what to make of them, nor what they will do next, nor what they will become in the future."

      "Then you can not blame me, can not be angry with me. And you will be ready to go with me to-morrow?"

      "No, I think not. I am afraid, after all you have said, Captain Lancaster, that you really are vexed in your mind at the thought of taking me. I do not believe I ought to take advantage of your pretended readiness," she replied, sensitively, and with that perfect frankness that seemed to be one of her characteristics.

      "And you refuse to go with me?" He gazed at her despairingly.

      "I would rather not," decidedly.

      He looked at the pretty face in some alarm. It had a very resolute air. Would she really carry out her threat of staying behind? He did not know much about American girls, but he had heard that they managed their own affairs rather more than their English sisters. This one looked exceedingly like the heroine of that familiar ballad: