you will be ready when the True Love that waits somewhere comes your
way."

She left me standing without a word. She ran up the steps swiftly. On
the topmost she poised a moment, as a bird does for flight.

"Good-night, Douglas!" she said. "Stephen is a name too common for
you--I shall call you Douglas. Remember, you must love me a little--but
not too much."

I stood dull and stupid, in a maze of whirling thought. My great lady
had suddenly grown human, but human of a kind that I had had no
conception of. Only this morning I had been opening the stores of very
chill wisdom to my pupil, Henry Fenwick of Allerton. Yet here, long ere
night was at its zenith, was I, standing amazed, trying under the stars
to remember exactly what a woman had said, and how she looked when she
said it.

"To love her a little--yet not to love her too much."

That was the difficult task she had set me. How to perform I knew not.

At the top of the steps I met Henry.

"Do you think that we need go on to-morrow morning?" he said. "Do you
not think we are in a very good quarter of the world, and that we might
do worse than stop a while?"

"If you wish it, I have no objections," I said, with due caution.