said Vaudemont, laughingly; "your grandfather only
anticipates me. But do not talk of board and lodging; Fanny is as a
sister to me, and our purse is in common."

"I should like to feel a sovereign--just to feel it," muttered Simon,
in a sort of apologetic tone, that was really pathetic; and as Vaudemont
scattered some coins on the table, the old man clawed them up, chuckling
and talking to himself; and, rising with great alacrity, hobbled out of
the room like a raven carrying some cunning theft to its hiding-place.

This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an
uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for
some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm
and said--

"Don't laugh--it pains me. It was not nice in grand papa; but--but, it
does not mean anything. It--it--don't laugh--Fanny feels so sad!"

"Well, you are right. Come, put on your bonnet, we will go out."

Fanny obeyed; but with less ready delight than usual. And they took
their way through lanes over which hung, still in the cool air, the
leaves of the yellow autumn.

Fanny was the first to break silence.

"Do you know," she said, timidly, "that people here think me very
silly?--do you think so too?"

Vaudemont was startled by the simplicity of the question, and hesitated.
Fanny looked up in his dark face anxiously and inquiringly.

"Well," she said, "you don't answer?"

"My dear Fanny, there are some things in which I could wish you less
childlike and, perhaps, less charming. Those strange snatches of song,
for instance!"

"What! do you not like me to sing? It is my way of talking."

"Yes; sing, pretty one! But sing something that we can understand,--sing
the songs I have given you, if you will. And now, may I ask why you put
to me that question?"

"I have forgotten," said Fanny, absently, and looking down.

Now, at that instant, as Philip Vaudemont bent over the exceeding
sweetness of that young face, a sudden thrill shot through his heart,
and he, too, became silent, and lost in thought. Was it possible that
there could creep into his breast a wilder affection for this creature
than that of tenderness and pity? He was startled as the idea crossed
him. He shrank from it as a profanation--as a crime--as a frenzy. He
with his fate so uncertain and chequered--he to link himself with one
so helpless--he to debase the very poetry that clung to the mental
temperament of this p