Cicely opened her big dark eyes.

"You will actually invite Roxmouth?"

"Of course I will--of course I MUST. I want everyone here to see and understand how absolutely indifferent I am to him."

"They will never see--they will NEVER understand!" said Cicely, shaking her mop of wild hair decisively--"My dear Maryllia, the colder you are to 'ce cher Roxmouth' the more the world will talk! They will say you are merely acting a part. "No woman in her senses, they will swear, would discourage the attentions of a prospective Duke."

"They may say what they like,--they may report me OUT of my senses if they choose!" declared Maryllia, hotly--"I am not a citizeness of the great American Republic that I should sell myself for a title! I have suffered quite enough at the hands of this society sneak, Roxmouth--and I don't intend to suffer any more. His methods are intolerable. There is not a city on the Continent where he has not paid the press to put paragraphs announcing my engagement to him-- and he has done the same thing with every payable paper in London. Aunt Emily has assisted him in this,--she has even written some of the announcements herself, sending them to the papers with my portrait and his, for publication! And because this constantly rumoured and expected marriage does not come off, and because people ask WHY it doesn't come off, the pair of conspirators are reduced to telling lies about me! I almost wish I could get small-pox or some other hideous ailment and become disfigured,--THEN Roxmouth might leave me alone! Perhaps Providence will arrange it in that way."