nvey,
when I remind you that there is no place too obscure to escape from the
ill-nature of gossip, and you must own that my niece incurs the chance
of its notice if she be seen walking alone in these by-paths with a
man of your age and position, and whose sojourn in the neighbourhood,
without any ostensible object or motive, has already begun to excite
conjecture. I do not for a moment assume that you regard my niece in any
other light than that of an artless child, whose originality of tastes
or fancy may serve to amuse you; and still less do I suppose that she
is in danger of misrepresenting any attentions on your part. But for her
sake I am bound to consider what others may say. Excuse me, then, if I
add that I think you are also bound in honour and in good feeling to do
the same. Mr. Chillingly, it would give me a great sense of relief if it
suited your plans to move from the neighbourhood."

"My dear Mrs. Cameron," answered Kenelm, who had listened to this speech
with imperturbable calm of visage, "I thank you much for your candour,
and I am glad to have this opportunity of informing you that I am about
to move from this neighbourhood, with the hope of returning to it in
a very few days and rectifying your mistake as to the point of view
in which I regard your niece. In a word," here the expression of his
countenance and the tone of his voice underwent a sudden change, "it is
the dearest wish of my heart to be empowered by my parents to assure you
of the warmth with which they will welcome your niece as their daughter,
should she deign to listen to my suit and intrust me with the charge of
her happiness."

Mrs. Cameron stopped short, gazing into his face with a look of
inexpressible dismay.

"No! Mr. Chillingly," she exclaimed, "this must not be,--cannot be. Put
out of your mind an idea so wild. A young man's senseless romance.
Your parents cannot consent to your union with my niece; I tell you
beforehand they cannot."

"But why?" asked Kenelm, with a slight smile, and not much impressed by
the vehemence of Mrs. Cameron's adjuration.

"Why?" she repeated passionately; and then recovering something of her
habitual weariness of quiet. "The why is easily explained. Mr. Kenelm
Chillingly is the heir of a very ancient house and, I am told, of
considerable estates. Lily Mordaunt is a nobody, an orphan, without
fortune, without connection, the ward of a humbly born artist, to
whom she owes the roof that shelters he