should she say to him? For the hundredth time the bitter apostrophe to
her father rose in Dolly's heart. How _could_ he have let her be
ashamed of him? And then another thought darted into her head. Had not
Mr. Shubrick a right to know all about it? Dolly was almost distracted
with her confusion of difficulties.

She would not cry, which as she told herself would help nothing. She
stood by a great oak branch which, leaving the parent trunk a few feet
higher up, swept in lordly fashion, in a delicious curve, down towards
the turf, with again a spring upward at its extremity. Dolly stood
where it came lowest, and had rested her two arms upon it, looking out
vaguely into the green wilderness beyond. She thought she was safe;
that was not the side towards the cottage, from which quarter Mr.
Shubrick would come; she would hear his steps in time before she turned
round. But Mr. Shubrick had seen her standing there, and innocently
made a little bend from the straight path so as to come up on one side
and catch a stolen view of her sweet face. Coming so, he saw much more
than he expected, and much more than Dolly would have let him see. The
next moment he had taken the girl in his arms.

Dolly started and would have freed herself, but she found she could not
do it without making more effort than she was willing to use. She stood
still, fluttering, trembling, and at the same time not a little abashed.

"What is troubling you, Dolly?"

Dolly dared not look and could not speak. Silence made an admission,
she knew; nevertheless, she could find no words to say.

"Don't you love me well enough to tell me?"

"Oh, it isn't that," cried Dolly; "it's _because_"----

Here Dolly's revelations came to an end, and yet she had revealed a
good deal. A dark glow came into the young officer's eyes. Truly, she
had before never told him so much as that she loved him. But his next
words were spoken in the same tone with the foregoing. It was very
affectionate, and withal there was a certain accent of authority in it.
I think it awed Dolly a little. She had known really very little of
authority, as exercised towards herself. This was something very unlike
her father's careless acquiescence, or his careless opposition; very
unlike the careless way in which he would sometimes throw his arm round
her, affectionate though that was. The affection here was different,
Dolly felt with an odd sort of astonishment; and the care, and the
asserted righ