orning come to me now with
a sweetness which I was too young and trifling to notice then. That
heart is yours now, Robert. I am yours." And, with these words, she
made a step forward.

At this demonstration Mr Brandon appeared suddenly to recover his
consciousness and he precipitately made two steps backwards, just
missing tumbling over his footstool into the fireplace.

"Madam!" he exclaimed, "what are you talking about?"

"Of the days of our courtship, and your love, Robert," she said. "My
love did not come then, but it is here now. Here now," she repeated,
putting the hand with the umbrella in it on her breast.

"Madam," exclaimed the old gentleman, "you must be raving crazy! Those
things to which you allude, happened nearly half a century ago; and
since that you have been married and settled, and----"

"Robert," interrupted the Widow Keswick, "you are mistaken. It is not
quite forty-five years since that morning, and why should hearts like
ours allow the passage of time or the mere circumstance of what might
be called an outside marriage, but now extinct, to come between them?
There is many a spring, Robert, which does not show when a man first
begins to dig, but it will bubble up in time. And, Robert, it bubbles
now." And with her head bent a little downwards, although her eyes
were still fixed upon him, she made another step in his direction.

Mr Brandon now backed himself flat against some book-shelves in his
rear. The perspiration began to roll from his face, and his whole form
trembled. "Mrs Keswick! Madam!" he exclaimed, "You will drive me mad!"

The old lady dropped the end of her umbrella on the floor, rested her
two hands on the head of it, settled herself into an easy position to
speak, and, with her head thrown back, fixed a steady gaze upon the
trembling old gentleman. "Robert," she said, "do not try to crush
emotions which always were a credit to you, although in those days
gone by I didn't tell you so. Your hair was black then, Robert, and
you looked taller, for you hadn't a stoop, and your face was very
smooth, and so was mine, and I remember I had on a white dress with a
broad ribbon around the waist, and neither of us wore specs. What you
said to me was very fresh and sweet, Robert, and it all comes to me
now as it never came before. You have never loved another, Robert, and
you don't know how happy it makes me to think that, and to know that I
can come to you and find you the same true and c