other, and I don't mean another night to pass over our heads
without some decision being arrived at. Elizabeth, you must know that
you have my happiness in your hands. I can't live without you. I can't
bear to see you making yourself a slave to everybody, with no one to
love you, no one to work for you and save you from anxiety and care. Let
me work for you, now, dearest; be my wife, and I will see that you have
your proper place, and that you are tended and cared for as a woman
ought to be."

Elizabeth had withdrawn her hands from his; she even turned a little
pale. He fancied that the tears stood in her eyes.

"Oh," she said, "I wish you had not said this to me, Percival."

It was easy for him to slip down from his low seat to a footstool, and
there, on one knee, to look full into her face, and let his handsome,
dark eyes plead for him.

"Why should I not have said it?" he breathed, softly. "Has it not been
the dream of my life for months?--I might almost say for years? I loved
you ever since you first came amongst us, Elizabeth, years ago."

"Did you, indeed?" said Elizabeth. A light of humour showed itself
through the tears that had come into her eyes. An amused, reluctant
smile curved the corners of her mouth. "What, when I was an awkward,
clumsy, ignorant schoolgirl, as I remember your calling me one day after
I had done something exceptionally stupid? And when you played practical
jokes upon me--hung my doll up by its hair, and made me believe that
there was a ghost in the attics--did you care for me then? Oh, no,
Percival, you forget! and probably you exaggerate the amount of your
feeling as much as you do the length of time it has lasted."

"It's no laughing matter, I assure you, Elizabeth," said Percival,
laughing a little himself at these recollections, but looking vexed at
the same time. "I am perfectly serious now, and very much in earnest;
and I can't believe that my stupid jokes, when I was a mere boy, have
had such an effect upon your mind as to prevent you from caring for me
now."

"No," said Elizabeth. "They make no difference; but--I'm very sorry,
Percival--I really don't think that it would do."

"What would not do? what do you mean?" said Percival, frowning.

"This arrangement; this--this--proposition of yours. Nobody would like
it."

"Nobody could object. I have a perfect right to marry if I choose, and
whom I choose. I am independent of my father."

"You could not marry yet, Percival,