'And who may that be?'

'The younger Miss. French--Fanny.'

His voice quivered over the name; at the end he gave a gasp and a
gulp. Of a sudden his lips and tongue were very dry, and he felt a
disagreeable chill running down his back. For the listener's face
had altered noticeably; it was dark, stern, and something worse. But
Mr. Lord could still speak with self-control.

'You have asked her to marry you?'

'Yes, I have; and she has consented.'

Horace felt his courage returning, like the so-called 'second wind'
of a runner. It seemed to him that he had gone through the worst.
The disclosure was made, and had resulted in no outbreak of fury;
now he could begin to plead his cause. Imagination, excited by
nervous stress, brought before him a clear picture of the beloved
Fanny, with fluffy hair upon her forehead and a laugh on her
never-closed lips. He spoke without effort.

'I thought that there would be no harm in asking you to help us. We
should be quite content to start on a couple of hundred a year--
quite. That is only about fifty pounds more than we have.'

Calf-love inspires many an audacity. To Horace there seemed nothing
outrageous in this suggestion. He had talked it over with Fanny
French several times, and they had agreed that his father could not