is still a bore to live with Miss Charlecote,' cried he, in his
rough eagerness.

'Don't use such words,' she answered, smiling. 'She is all kindness and
forgiveness, and what can it be but my old vixen spirit that makes this
hard to bear?'

'Cilla!' he said.

'Well?'

'Cilla!'

'Well?'

'I have a great mind to tell you why I came to Southminster.'

'To look at a living?'

'To look at you. If I had found you pining and oppressed, I had thought
of asking if you could put up with your father's old friend.'

She looked with eyes of wonder, drew her arm away, and stood still,
partly bewildered. 'You didn't?' she said, half in interrogation.

'I saw my mistake; you were too young and gay. But, Cilla,' he added,
more tremulously, 'if you do wish for a home--'

'Don't, don't!' she cried; 'I can't have you talk as if I only wanted a
home!'

'And indeed I have none as yet,' he said. 'But do you indeed mean that
you could think of it?'--and he came nearer.

'It! Nonsense! Of you!' she vehemently exclaimed. 'How could you think
of anything else?'

'Cilla,' he said, in great agitation, 'let me know what you are saying.
Don't drive me crazy when it is not in the nature of things you should
mean it!'

'Why not?' asked Lucilla. 'It is only too good for me.'

'Is it true, then?' he said, as he took both her hands in his. 'Is it
true that you understand me, and are willing to be--to be my own--darling
charge?'

'Oh, it would be such rest!'

It was as if the storm-tossed bird was folding its weary wing in perfect
calm and confidence. Nor could he contain his sudden joy, but spoke
incoherent words, and well-nigh wept over her.

'How did you come to think of it?' exclaimed she, as, the first gush of
feeling over, they walked on arm-in-arm.

'I thought of it from the moment when I hoped I might be a resource, a
comforter at least.'

'Not before?' was the rather odd question.

'No. The place was forlorn enough without you; but I was not such a fool
as to think of a young beauty, and all that.'

'_All that_ meaning my wickedness,' said Lucilla. 'Tell me again. You
always did like the sprite even when it was wicked, only you were too
good and right-minded.'

'Too old and too poor.'

'She is old and poor now,' said Cilla; 'worn out and washed out into a
mere rag. And you like her the better?'

'Not washed out!' he said, as her countenance flushed into more than its
wonted loveliness. 'I used