Hindoo Khan

upon the soft cushions of the chesterfield and gave himself up to thought. And his thoughts were of Dorothy and their expedition to Ranelagh. He meant to ask her to marry him, and he schemed how it could be done. Several times an opportunity had presented itself to him and he had failed to take it. At the psychological moment his courage had failed him. It was an extraordinary trait to find in a man of the world, but there it was, and the hon. Bertie was as shy as the proverbial mongoose. Now as he lay back on the cushions the fumes of the fragrant Havannah helped him to forget his present surroundings. He began to dream of the future. And in that dream he had got Dorothy apart from her father. He had led her into the rose garden at Ranelagh, and there in an arbour he had her alone, cut off from the rest of the world by a screen of green leaves and coloured blossoms. Words that he should speak to her presented themselves to him, jumbled and confused, to be dismissed as irreverent again and again. And then at