Lily would have been
ill-treated;--though, alas, alas, there was future ill-treatment, so
much heavier, in store for her! But there are other cases in which a
lover cannot make himself known as such without great difficulty,
and when he does do so, cannot hope for an immediate answer in his
favour. It is hard upon old friends that this difficulty should
usually fall the heaviest upon them. Crofts had been so intimate with
the Dale family that very many persons had thought it probable that
he would marry one of the girls. Mrs Dale herself had thought so, and
had almost hoped it. Lily had certainly done both. These thoughts and
hopes had somewhat faded away, but yet their former existence should
have been in the doctor's favour. But now, when he had in some way
spoken out, Bell started back from him and would not believe that he
was in earnest. She probably loved him better than any man in the
world, and yet, when he spoke to her of love, she could not bring
herself to understand him.

"I don't know what you mean, Dr Crofts; indeed I do not," she said.

"I had meant to ask you to be my wife; simply that. But you shall not
have the pain of making me a positive refusal. As I rode here to-day
I thought of it. During my frequent rides of late I have thought of
little else. But I told myself that I had no right to do it. I have
not even a house in which it would be fit that you should live."

"Dr Crofts, if I loved you,--if I wished to marry you--" and then she
stopped herself.

"But you do not?"

"No; I think not. I suppose not. No. But in any way no consideration
about money has anything to do with it."

"But I am not that butcher or that baker whom you could love?"

"No," said Bell; and then she stopped herself from further speech,
not as intending to convey all her answer in that one word, but as
not knowing how to fashion any further words.

"I knew it would be so," said the doctor.

It will, I fear, be thought by those who condescend to criticise this
lover's conduct and his mode of carrying on his suit, that he was
very unfit for such work. Ladies will say that he wanted courage, and
men will say that he wanted wit. I am inclined, however, to believe
that he behaved as well as men generally do behave on such occasions,
and that he showed himself to be a good average lover. There is your
bold lover, who knocks his lady-love over as he does a bird, and
who would anathematise himself all over, and swear that hi