l the shame of turning you out of your own drawing-room. Perhaps
Caroline will not mind coming down with me into the parlour."

But Miss Baker of course waived this objection, and as she retreated,
the two ladies met just at the drawing-room door. Caroline was about
to speak, but was stopped by the expression on her aunt's face.
Ladies have little ways of talking to each other, with nods and becks
and wreathed smiles, which are quite beyond the reach of men; and in
this language aunt Mary did say something as she passed which gave
her niece to understand that the coming interview would not consist
merely of the delights which are common among lovers. Caroline,
therefore, as she entered the room composed her face for solemn
things, and walked slowly, and not without some dignity in her mien,
into the presence of him who was to be her lord and master.

"We hardly expected you, George," she said.

His father had been right. She was looking well, very well. Her
figure was perhaps not quite so full, nor the colour in her cheek
quite so high as when he had first seen her in Jerusalem; but,
otherwise, she had never seemed to him more lovely. The little effort
she had made to collect herself, to assume a certain majesty in her
gait, was becoming to her. So also was her plain morning dress, and
the simple braid in which her hair was collected. It might certainly
be boasted of Miss Waddington that she was a beauty of the morning
rather than of the night; that her complexion was fitted for the sun
rather than for gaslight.

He was going to give up all this! And why? That which he saw before
him, that which he had so often brought himself to believe, that
which at this moment he actually did believe to be as perfect a form
of feminine beauty as might be found by any search in England, was as
yet his own. And he might keep it as his own. He knew, or thought he
knew enough of her to be sure that, let her feelings be what they
might, she would not condescend to break her word to him. Doubtless,
she would marry him; and that in but a few months hence if only
he would marry her! Beautiful as she was, much as she was his own,
much as he still loved her, he had come there to reject her! All
this flashed through his mind in a moment. He lost no time in idle
thoughts.

"Caroline," he said, stretching out his hand to her--usually when
he met her after any absence he had used his hand to draw her
nearer to him with more warmth than his