When she came out of her room in her evening frock, Tinker regarded her for a moment with a satisfaction that was almost solemn, then he turned her round and said, "We match." "Do you really think so ?" said Elsie in an awed voice, with humid eyes.
"There's no doubt about it," said Tinker, with calm, dispassionate, and judicial impartiality.
When they came into the restaurant there was a faint murmur of delighted surprise from the tables they passed; and one stout, but sentimental baroness cried, "Viola des seraphin!" And truly, if you can conceive of a seraph in an Eton suit, a low-cut white waistcoat, and a white tie, there was something in what she said.
At the sight of them Sir Tancred smiled, and Lord Crosland said, "I congratulate you on your taste, young people." "It was Tinker's," said Elsie; and she looked at him with a world of thankfulness and devotion in her eyes.
After dinner Tinker was uncomfortable.

He felt bound to break to Elsie her uncle's desertion, and he was afraid of tears.

With a vague notion of emphasising the difference between her uncle's _regime_ and his own, he led the way to the corner of the gardens where they had first met and, standing before the seat on which she had waited so long and hungrily, he said, "I say, don't you think we could do without your uncle ?" "Do without uncle ?" said Elsie surprised.
"Yes; suppose, instead of living with your uncle and his looking after you, you lived with us, and I looked after you?
Suppose you were to be my adopted sister ?" "For good and all ?" said Elsie in a hushed voice.
"Yes." For answer she threw her arms round his neck, kissed him, and cried, "Oh, I do love you so." By a splendid effort Tinker repressed a wriggle.
"We'll consider it settled, then," he said.
Elsie loosed him.

With a little deprecating cough, and a delicate tentativeness, he said, "About kissing, of course, now that you're my sister you have a right to kiss me sometimes; and--and--of course it's all right.

But don't you think you could manage with once a day--when we say good-night ?" "In the morning, too," said Elsie greedily.
"Well, twice a day," said Tinker with a sigh..