"But you will wonder what can be the particular purpose for which I
have bidden you here to-night. Be assured that it was not to ask you
to listen to gloomy sermons on the, to others, not very interesting
fact of my approaching end, but rather for a joyful and a definite
reason. One wish I have long had, it is--that before I go, I may see
my son's child, the little Caresfoot that is to fill my place in
future years, prattling about my knees. But this I shall never see.
What I have to announce to you, however, is the first step towards it,
my son's engagement to Miss Lee, the young lady on my right."

"Look at his face," whispered Mrs. Bellamy to her neighbour, during
the murmur of applause that followed this announcement. "Look quick."

Philip had put his hands down upon his chair as though to raise
himself up, and an expression of such mingled rage and terror swept
across his features as, once seen, could not easily be forgotten. But
so quickly did it pass that perhaps Mrs. Bellamy, who was watching,
was the only one in all that company to observe it. In another moment
he was smiling and bowing his acknowledgements to whispered and
telegraphed congratulations.

"You all know Miss Lee," went on the old squire, "as you knew her
father and mother before her; she is a sound shoot from an honest
stock, a girl after my own heart, a girl that I love, and that all who
come under her influence will love, and this engagement is to me the
most joyful news that I have heard for many a year. May God, ay, and
man too, so deal with my son as he deals with Maria Lee!

"And now I have done; I have already kept you too long. With your