efore been able
to speak of his love, so was he then unable not to speak of it. He
had spoken, and of course had been simply rebuked. Since that day
Crosbie had ceased to be an angel of light, and he, John Eames, had
spoken often. But he had spoken in vain, and now he would speak once
again.

He went through the garden and over the lawn belonging to the Small
House and saw no one. He forgot, I think, that ladies do not come
out to pick roses when the ground is frozen, and that croquet is not
often in progress with the hoar-frost on the grass. So he walked up
to the little terrace before the drawing-room, and looking in saw Mrs
Dale, and Lily, and Grace at their morning work. Lily was drawing,
and Mrs. Dale was writing, and Grace had her needle in her hand. As
it happened, no one at first perceived him, and he had time to feel
that after all he would have managed better if he had been announced
in the usual way. As, however, it was now necessary that he should
announce himself, he knocked at the window, and they all immediately
looked up and saw him. "It's my cousin John," said Grace. "Oh,
Johnny, how are you at last?" said Mrs. Dale. But it was Lily who,
without speaking, opened the window for him, who was the first to
give him her hand, and who led him through into the room.

"It's a great shame my coming in this way," said John, "and letting
all the cold air in upon you."

"We shall survive it," said Mrs. Dale. "I suppose you have just come
down from my brother-in-law?"

"No; I have not seen the squire as yet. I will do so before I go
back, of course. But it seemed such a commonplace sort of thing to go
round by the village."

"We are very glad to see you, by whatever way you came;--are we not,
mamma?" said Lily.

"I'm not so sure of that. We were only saying yesterday that as you
had been in the country a fortnight without coming to us, we did not
think we would be at home when you did come."

"But I have caught you, you see," said Johnny.

And so they went on, chatting of old times and of mutual friends very
comfortably for full an hour. And there was some serious conversation
about Grace's father and his affairs, and John declared his opinion
that Mr. Crawley ought to go to his uncle, Thomas Toogood, not at all
knowing that at that time Mr. Crawley himself had come to the same
opinion. And John gave them an elaborate description of Sir Raffle
Buffle, standing up with his back to the fire with his hat on