Hillsborough friends."

"Well, but did you not tell me he had quarreled with Mr. Raby?"

"No, not quarreled. Mr. Raby offered to make him his heir: but he
chooses to be independent, and make his own fortune, that's all."

"Well, if you think our old friend would not take it amiss, invite them
by all means. I remember her a lovely woman."

So the Littles were invited; and the young ladies admired Mr. Little on
the whole, but sneered at him a little for gazing on Miss Carden, as
if she was a divinity: the secret, which escaped the father, girls
of seventeen detected in a minute, and sat whispering over it in the
drawing-room.

After this invitation, Henry and his mother called, and then Grace
called on Mrs. Little; and this was a great step for Henry, the more so
as the ladies really took to each other.

The course of true love was beginning to run smooth, when it was
disturbed by Mr. Coventry.

That gentleman's hopes had revived in London; Grace Carden had been
very kind and friendly to him, and always in such good spirits, that he
thought absence had cured her of Little, and his turn was come again.
The most experienced men sometimes mistake a woman in this way. The real
fact was that Grace, being happy herself, thanks to a daily letter from
the man she adored, had not the heart to be unkind to another, whose
only fault was loving her, and to whom she feared she had not behaved
very well. However, Mr. Coventry did mistake her. He was detained
in town by business, but he wrote Mr. Carden a charming letter, and
proposed formally for his daughter's hand.

Mr. Carden had seen the proposal coming this year and more; so he was
not surprised; but he was gratified. The letter was put into his hand
while he was dressing for dinner. Of course he did not open the subject
before the servants: but, as soon as they had retired, he said, "Grace,
I want your attention on a matter of importance."

Grace stared a little, but said faintly, "Yes, papa," and all manner of
vague maidenly misgivings crowded through her brain.

"My child, you are my only one, and the joy of the house; and need I say
I shall feel your loss bitterly whenever your time comes to leave me?"

"Then I never will leave you," cried Grace, and came and wreathed her
arms round his neck.

He kissed her, and parting her hair, looked with parental fondness at
her white brow, and her deep clear eyes.

"You shall never leave me, for the worse," said he: "but yo