reply. "It is well that you
should know. He knows now, I am sure. After what I said in my letter
he will not contradict me again." Lady Frances shook her head. "I
have told him that while I live he of all the world must be dearest
to me. But that will be all."

"Why should you--not live?"

"Lady Frances--"

"Nay, call me Fanny."

"You shall be Fanny if you will let me tell you. Oh! I do so wish
that you would understand it all, and make me tell you nothing
further. But you must know,--you must know that it cannot be as your
brother has wished. If it were only less known,--if he would consent
and you would consent,--then I think that I could be happy. What is
it after all,--the few years that we may have to live here? Shall we
not meet again, and shall we not love each other then?"

"I hope so."

"If you can really hope it, then why should we not be happy? But
how could I hope it if, with my eyes open, I were to bring a great
misfortune upon him? If I did him an evil here, could I hope that
he would love me in Heaven, when he would know all the secrets of
my heart? But if he shall say to himself that I denied myself,--for
his sake; that I refused to be taken into his arms because it would
be bad for him, then, though there may be some one dearer, then
shall not I also be dear to him?" The other girl could only cling
to her and embrace her. "When he shall have strong boys round his
hearth,--the hearth he spoke of as though it were almost mine,--and
little girls with pink cheeks and bonny brows, and shall know, as he
will then, what I might have done for him, will he not pray for me,
and tell me in his prayers that when we shall meet hereafter I shall
still be dear to him? And when she knows it all, she who shall lie on
his breast, shall I not be dear also to her?"

"Oh, my sister!"

"He will tell her. I think he will tell her,--because of his truth,
his honour, and his manliness."

Lady Frances, before she left the house, had been made to understand
that her brother could not have his way in the matter which was so
near his heart, and that the Quaker's daughter would certainly have
hers.

CHAPTER VI.

"BUT HE IS;--HE IS."

George Roden had come to a decision as to his title, and had
told every one concerned that he meant to be as he always had
been,--George Roden, a clerk in the Post Office. When spoken
to, on this side and the other, as to the propriety,--or rather
impropriety,--of his decisio