be happy after
all? Are you to be a Daisy of my own?"

"If you will let me," murmured Meta, clinging to her kind old friend.

"No flower on earth could come so naturally to us," said Dr. May. "And,
dear child, at last I may venture to tell you that you have a sanction
that you will value more than mine. Yes, my dear, on the last day of
your dear father's life, when some foreboding hung upon him, he spoke
to me of your prospects, and singled out this very Norman as such as he
would prefer."

Meta's tears prevented all, save the two little words, "thank you;" but
she put out her hand to Norman, as she still rested on the doctor's arm,
more as if he had been her mother than Norman's father.

"Did he?" from Norman, was equally inexpressive of the almost
incredulous gratitude and tenderness of his feeling.

It would not bear talking over at that moment, and Dr. May presently
broke the silence in a playful tone. "So, Meta, good men don't like
heiresses?"

"Quite true," said Meta, "it was very much against me."

"Or it may be the other way," said Norman.

"Eh? Good men don't like heiresses--here's a man who likes an
heiress--therefore here's a man that is not good? Ah, ha! Meta, you can
see that is false logic, though I've forgotten mine. And pray, miss,
what are we to say to your uncle?"

"He cannot help it," said Meta quickly.

"Ha!" said the doctor, laughing, "we remember our twenty-one years, do
we?"

"I did not mean--I hope I said nothing wrong," said Meta, in blushing
distress. "Only after what you said, I can care for nothing else."

"If I could only thank him," said Norman fervently.

"I believe you know how to do that, my boy," said Dr. May, looking
tenderly at the fairy figure between them, and ending with a sigh,
remembering, perhaps, the sense of protection with which he had felt
another Margaret lean on his arm.

The clatter of horses' hoofs caused Meta to withdraw her hand, and
Norman to retreat to his own side of the lane, as Sir Henry Walkinghame
and his servant overtook them.

"We will be in good time for the proceedings," called out the doctor.
"Tell them we are coming."

"I did not know you were walking," said Sir Henry to Meta.

"It is pleasant in the plantations," Dr. May answered for her; "but I
am afraid we are late, and our punctual friends will be in despair. Will
you kindly say we are at hand?"

Sir Henry rode on, finding that he was not to be allowed to walk his
horse with the