see him," said Frank slowly.

"Will you? That will be so good of you. I feel that I can leave it
all so safely in your hands. I shall go out of town, you know, on the
thirtieth. I feel that I shall be better away, and I am sick of all
the noise, and glitter, and worldliness of London. You will come on
the twelfth?"

"Not quite so soon as that," he said, after a pause.

"But you will come?"

"Yes;--about the twentieth."

"And, of course, I shall see you?"

"Oh, yes."

"So that I may have some one to guide me that I can trust. I have
no brother, Frank; do you ever think of that?" She put out her hand
to him, and he clasped it, and held it tight in his own; and then,
after a while, he pulled her towards him. In a moment she was on the
ground, kneeling at his feet, and his arm was round her shoulder,
and his hand was on her back, and he was embracing her. Her face was
turned up to him, and he pressed his lips upon her forehead. "As my
brother," she said, stretching back her head and looking up into his
face.

"Yes;--as your brother."

They were sitting, or rather acting their little play together, in
the back drawing-room, and the ordinary entrance to the two rooms
was from the landing-place into the larger apartment;--of which fact
Lizzie was probably aware, when she permitted herself to fall into a
position as to which a moment or two might be wanted for recovery.
When, therefore, the servant in livery opened the door, which he did,
as Frank thought somewhat suddenly, she was able to be standing on
her legs before she was caught. The quickness with which she sprung
from her position, and the facility with which she composed not her
face only, but the loose lock of her hair and all her person, for
the reception of the coming visitor, was quite marvellous. About her
there was none of the look of having been found out, which is so very
disagreeable to the wearer of it; whereas Frank, when Lord Fawn was
announced, was aware that his manner was awkward, and his general
appearance flurried. Lizzie was no more flurried than if she had
stepped that moment from out of the hands of her tirewoman. She
greeted Lord Fawn very prettily, holding him by the hand long enough
to show that she had more claim to do so than could any other woman,
and then she just murmured her cousin's name. The two men shook
hands--and looked at each other as men do who know that they are
not friends, and think that they may live to be enemies.