At dusk the following evening, Sandara was standing at the windows of her room, looking out across the drive, when she saw a car twinkling in the dusky light. "Han Byul!" she breathed and ran from her room, hurrying down the long hall on the third floor.

Ramsey opened the door just as Han Byul erupted from the car and ran up the front steps of the huge house,  "Sir, where is Sandara? Is she still alive?"

Sandara plummeted down the staircase and into the foyer, throwing her arms around Han Byul,

. "Han Byul!" she burst out joyously. "I'm so happy you've come" In the normal tomblike silence of the Yejin’s stately home, this noisy greeting ranked as an uproar and therefore drew not only three more servants into the foyer, but to Yejin and her eldest grandson as well.

“Oh, Dara!" Han Byul exclaimed in an agitated, disjointed rush. "I thought you were dying! And here you are looking almost as well as ever, except a little pale, which probably comes from inhabiting this gloomy house with these gloomy people." Scarcely pausing for breath, she continued anxiously, "Your note sounded so grim, and Mama was going to come too, but she couldn't, because my papa's not well again. And that dreadful driver wouldn't tell me a thing about what was wrong with you, although I pleaded with him to do so. All he would do was look down his huge nose at me and say, 'I'm sure it isn't my place to know.' Now tell me at once before I burst! Why are you 'desolate' and what is the 'horrible disaster' you wrote about and whoever are these people!"

Behind them Yejin snapped like a whip, "I believe Miss Park desolate' because she is about to be married to the owner of this 'gloomy' house, who happens to be my grandson." Han Byul’s mouth dropped open and she whirled on Dara. "Oh, no!" she wailed, her horrified gaze flying to Ramsey, whom she erroneously deduced from his fine black suit to be the owner of the house. "Dara, you aren't going to marry that man! I won't let you!Dara, he's fat!"

Jiyong cleared his throat from the doorway across the hall, where he had been observing the scene with mingled irritation and amusement. "Sandara perhaps your friend would like to be relieved of her parcels and then properly introduced?"

Dara jumped at the unexpected sound of his deep voice. "Yes. Yes, of course," she said hastily as Ramsey stepped forward and took a bundle from each of Han Byul's arms. "Whatever is in that large one?" Dara asked in an underbreath as Ramsey turned and started down the hall.

 Grasping Han Byul’s elbow and giving it a warning squeeze, she turned her friend around so they faced Jiyong  and his grandmother, while Dara stumbled nervously through the introductions.

Yejin her heel and marched into the salon, then Han Byul turned while Dara introduced the tall man as Jiyong Kwon.

Too thunderstruck to say a word to the man, Han Byul looked to Dara, her eyes wide. "A Kwon?" she whispered, ignoring the holder of that title. Dara nodded, already realizing that having Han Byul come here had been impossibly unfair to the simple country girl.

"A real, genuine, honest-to-goodness Kwon?" Han Byul persisted in an underbreath, so intimidated she could not bear to look upon his face.

"The real thing," Jiyong drawled dryly. "A real, genuine, honest-to-goodness  Kwon”

."What?" Han Byul echoed blankly, her flush deepening. "I'll explain upstairs," Dara whispered. Regathering her wits, she looked uncertainly at Jiyong, who was looming in the doorway like a dark, giant god. Larger than life. Forbidding. Yet strangely compelling.

"If you'll excuse us, Jiyong, I will take Han Byul upstairs."

"By all means," Jiyong drawled, and Dara had the humiliating feeling that he found the pair of them as absurdly amusing as a pair of clumsy mongrel puppies tumbling about in a stableyard.

"Dara, what has happened to you? Only four days ago, we were just having fun at the party, and then you vanished, and now the whole village is talking about you. Mama says I mustn't pay any mind to anything I hear until we talk to you ourselves, but Mrs Hemley told Hye Sun, who told me, that we mustn't ever speak to you again. We must cross the street if we see you coming and avoid you because you are soiled now."

Dara did not know it was possible to feel more alone and wretched than she already did, but this piece of news made her heart cry out in anguished protest. Everyone had believed the worst of her, after all. The people she had known since babyhood were willing to make her an outcast, without ever hearing her side of the story. Only Han Byul and her family believed in her enough to wait for explanations.

I'll tell you what happened" For several long minutes after Dara finished explaining everything, Han Byul could only stare at her in amazed silence. Slowly though, han Byul’s blank expression faded and became more thoughtful, then it became positively luminous. "Dara!"

"Your betrothed husband is not only a Kwon, he's positively gorgeous! He is don't deny it. I thought so the moment I clapped eyes on him downstairs, only I was very distressed over you, and so I didn't really think about it."

Well aware of Han Byul’s fascination with and for the opposite , Dara said a little self-consciously, "His appearance is not entirely displeasing." "Not displeasing?" Han Byul hooted in disbelief "Why, I vow he's even better-looking than Choi Dongwook, and Dongwook is the handsomest boy I know. Why, Dongwook quite takes away my breath!"

"Six months ago, you thought Teddy was the handsomest boy you knew," Dara pointed out, smiling. "And Teddy took away your breath."

"Only because I hadn't really looked at Dongwook," replied han Byul defensively. "And six months before that, you thought Lee Minho was the handsomest boy in the world and he took your breath away," Dara continued.

 "Your soon to be husband is a man of barely passable looks."

"Barely passable” Dara  exclaimed defensively. "Why, his features are manly and very nice!"

"Really? You don't find his hair too dark, or his face too tanned, or his eyes a very odd color?"

"They're brown!”

Han Byul said with sham innocence, "But surely, neither of us would go so far as to pretend he looks in any way like a Greek god?" "Greek god, indeed,"

Dara. "I should say not."

"Then how would you describe him?"

Dara's shoulders drooped as she admitted the truth: "Oh, Han Byul," she breathed in an awed, unhappy whisper, "his look is unique!" Han Byul nodded sagely. "You're in love with him. Don't deny it. It's written all over your face when you speak of him. Now tell me," she said eagerly, scooting forward and peering at Dara closely, "what does it feel like to you loving a man, I mean?"

"Well,"Dara, warming to her subject despite her strongest wish to be sensible, "it's the queerest sort of feeling, but exciting too. When I see him in the hall, I feel rather like I used to feel when I saw my papa's care draw up in the drive you know, happy, but worried that I look a fright, and sad too, because I'm afraid he'll leave if I'm not amusing and just right, and then I'll lose him."

So eager was she to hear more about being in love that Han Byul spoke without thinking. "Don't be silly. How can he possible leave you if you are married to him?"

"Exactly like my papa left my mama." Sympathy flickered in Han Byul’s eyes, but she brightened almost immediately. "Never mind about that. It is all in the past after all, and besides, in four more days you'll be twenty two and that definitely makes you a woman”

"I don't feel like a woman!" Dara said miserably, finally putting into words all that had been worrying her since she first met the man who had stolen her heart within an hour after he first looked at her. "Han Byul, I don't know what to say to him. I was never the least bit interested in boys and now, when he's near, I haven't a clue what to say or do. Either I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind and make a complete cake of myself or else I lose my wits entirely and stand there like a piece of mutton. What should I do?" she implored.

Han Byul's eyes shone with pride. Dara was the acknowledged scholar of the village, but no one thought she was pretty. Han Byul, on the other hand, was the acknowledged village beauty, but no one thought she housed a brain between her ears. In fact, her own dear papa consistently called her his "lovely little corkbrain."

"What do you discuss with the boys who come calling on you at home?" Dara begged earnestly. Mary Ellen furrowed her brow, valiantly trying to use the fine mind Dara was finally giving her credit for having. "Well," she said slowly, "I observed long ago that boys love to talk about themselves and the things that interest them." She brightened as the matter resolved itself completely. "All you have to do is ask a boy the right question and he'll talk you into distraction. There, it's as simple as that."

Dara threw up her hands in frustrated panic. "How could I possibly know what interests him and, besides, he isn't a boy at all, he's already twenty-five." "True," Han Byul admitted, "but my mama has often remarked that men, even my papa, are all just boys at heart. Therefore, my scheme will still work. To engage him in conversation, merely ask him about something that interests him."

"But I don't know what interests him!" Dara sighed. Han Byul lapsed into silence, thinking heavily on the problem. "I have it! He will be interested in much the same manly things as my papa speaks of. Ask him about”

"About what?" Dara prodded, leaning forward in her eagerness when Han Byul seemed lost in thought.

Suddenly Han Byul snapped her fingers and beamed. "About bugs! “

Doubt wrinkled Dara's forehead into a thoughtful knot. "Insects don't seem a very pleasant topic." "Oh, males don't enjoy pleasant or truly interesting topics at all. I mean if you try to tell them about a beautiful bonnet you saw in a shop window they positively wilt. And if you dare to discuss, at any length, the sort of dress you are longing to have someday, they are perfectly likely to doze off in the middle of your description of it!"

Dara stored this vital piece of information away, along with the advice about bugs. "And do not, under any conditions," Han Byul warned severely, "discuss your fusty old Socrates and dull old Plato with him. Men despise a woman who is too smart. And another thing, Dara," Han Byul said, warming more and more to her subject. "You'll have to learn how to flirt."

Dara winced, but she knew better than to argue. Boys of all ages hung about Han Byul's skirts and cluttered up the family parlor, hoping for a moment with her, therefore, han Byul's advice on the subject was definitely not to be taken lightly. "Very well," she said reluctantly, "how do I go about flirting?"

"Well, use your eyes, for one thing. You have excellent eyes." "Use them to do what?" "To look steadily into the eyes of Jiyong. And flutter your lashes a little to show how long they are"

Dara experimentally "fluttered" her lashes, then collapsed onto the pillows, laughing. "I would look a perfect fool."

"Not to a man. They like that sort of thing." Dara sobered and turned her head on the pillow to gaze thoughtfully atHan Byul. "You're quite certain?" "Absolutely positive. And another thing men like to know you like them. I mean, when you tell them they're oh so strong or brave or clever, they like that. It makes them feel special. Have you told Jiyong you love him?"

Silence. "Have you?" "Certainly not!" "You should. Then he'll tell you he loves you!" "Are you certain?" "Of course."