ed, as I saw her breath come fast;
for the smallest emotion moved her form.

'You don't think, John, you don't think, dear, that you could lend me
any money?'

'All I have got,' I answered; 'how much do you want, dear heart?'

'I have been calculating; and I fear that I cannot do any good with less
than ten pounds, John.'

Here she looked up at me, with horror at the grandeur of the sum, and
not knowing what I could think of it. But I kept my eyes from her.
'Ten pounds!' I said in my deepest voice, on purpose to have it out
in comfort, when she should be frightened; 'what can you want with ten
pounds, child?'

'That is my concern, said Lorna, plucking up her spirit at this: 'when
a lady asks for a loan, no gentleman pries into the cause of her asking
it.'

'That may be as may be,' I answered in a judicial manner; 'ten pounds,
or twenty, you shall have. But I must know the purport.'

'Then that you never shall know, John. I am very sorry for asking you.
It is not of the smallest consequence. Oh, dear, no.' Herewith she was
running away.

'Oh, dear, yes,' I replied; 'it is of very great consequence; and I
understand the whole of it. You want to give that stupid Annie, who
has lost you a hundred thousand pounds, and who is going to be married
before us, dear--God only can tell why, being my younger sister--you
want to give her a wedding present. And you shall do it, darling;
because it is so good of you. Don't you know your title, love? How
humble you are with us humble folk. You are Lady Lorna something, so far
as I can make out yet: and you ought not even to speak to us. You will
go away and disdain us.'

'If you please, talk not like that, John. I will have nothing to do with
it, if it comes between you and me, John.'

'You cannot help yourself,' said I. And then she vowed that she could
and would. And rank and birth were banished from between our lips in no
time.

'What can I get her good enough? I am sure I do not know,' she asked:
'she has been so kind and good to me, and she is such a darling. How I
shall miss her, to be sure! By the bye, you seem to think, John, that I
shall be rich some day.'

'Of course you will. As rich as the French King who keeps ours. Would
the Lord Chancellor trouble himself about you, if you were poor?'

'Then if I am rich, perhaps you would lend me twenty pounds, dear John.
Ten pounds would be very mean for a wealthy person to give her.'

To this I agreed, upon condition