"Speaking of the Doctor, you ought to know--I would rather that no one else told you--we are going to be married." The Duke was so much surprised--not so much at the information as at her manner of imparting it--that he pulled up short.

Seeing him stop, she stopped also.
"Are you very much astonished ?" she asked, pushing the gray veil up to her hat, and looking at him smilingly out of her deep, dark eyes.

The Duke spoke no word, but leapt from his horse, which he left standing in the middle of the path, surprised into docility by the sudden desertion.
There were a few wild-flowers growing by the road, which here led through a wooded glade of the Park; they were the flowers called Michaelmas daisies, which bloom until November in America.

He picked a great handful of them, and came running back.
"Let me be the first to congratulate you, my dear friend," he said, standing bareheaded at her stirrup, and offering the flowers with a half-bashful smile that sat strangely on a man of his years.

It was a quick, impulsive action, such as no one could have expected from him who did not know him intimately well--and few could boast that they did.
Margaret was touched by his look and manner.
"Thanks," she said, bending over her saddle-bow, and taking the daisies as he held them up to her.