'Well--I did fancy she spoke with something more of ceremony the
last time you met. But, consider, she has seen so much less of you
of late. Yet I am sure she has all but a mother's love in her heart
towards you. For your mother was dear to her as her own soul.'

'I would it were so, Dorothy! For then, perhaps, your mother would
not shrink from being my mother too. When we are married, Dorothy--'

'Married!' exclaimed the girl. 'What of marrying, indeed!' And she
turned sideways from him with an indignant motion. 'Richard,' she
went on, after a marked and yet but momentary pause, for the youth
had not had time to say a word, 'it has been very wrong in me to
meet you after this fashion. I know it now, for see what such things
lead to! If you knew it, you have done me wrong.'

'Dearest Dorothy!' exclaimed the youth, taking her hand again, of
which this time she seemed hardly aware, 'did you not know from the
very vanished first that I loved you with all my heart, and that to
tell you so would have been to tell the sun that he shines warm at
noon in midsummer? And I did think you had a little--something for
me, Dorothy, your old playmate, that you did not give to every other
acquaintance. Think of the houses we have built and the caves we
have dug together--of our rabbits, and urchins, and pigeons, and
peacocks!'

'We are children no longer,' returned Dorothy. 'To behave as if we
were would be to keep our eyes shut after we are awake. I like you,
Richard, you know; but why this--where is the use of all this--new
sort of thing? Come up with me to the house, where master Herbert is
now talking to my mother in the large parlour. The good man will be