here she
stood some time, thinking of her dear old grandmother. She was not
altogether pleased with its appearance, and she stooped to gather out a
weed here and there.

Presently Valentine came down the garden. He was lost in thought, and
when he saw Laura he started and seemed troubled. "What can you be
about, Laura dear?" he said.

He had made up his mind that she had a pecuniary claim on him, and
therefore he purposely addressed her with the affection of a relative.
He felt that this would make it easier for her to admit this convenient
claim.

"What am I about?" answered Laura. "Why, Valentine, I was just picking
off some of these leaves, which appear to have been broken. The bed
looks almost as if some--some creature had been lying on it."

"Does it?" said Valentine, and he sighed, and stood beside her while she
continued her self-imposed task.

"These lilies, you know," she remarked, "have great attractions for us."

"Yes," said Valentine, and sighed again.

"How he shivers!" thought Laura. "You cannot think," she said, rising
from her task and looking about her, "how it touches my feelings to come
back to the old place."

"You like it then, Laura?"

"Like it! I love it, and everything belonging to it."

"Including me!" exclaimed Valentine, rallying for the moment and
laughing.

Laura looked up and laughed too, but without answering. Before there was
time for that, she had seen the light of his smile die out, and the
gloom settle down again. A sort of amazement seemed to be growing under
his eyelids; his thought, whatever it was, had gradually returned upon
him, and he was struck by it with a new surprise.

"Valentine!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he answered steadily and gravely, and then roused himself to add,
"Come out from under the shadow of this wall. The garden is all gloomy
here in the morning; it makes me shiver. I want to speak to you," he
continued, when they had passed through the door in the wall, and were
walking on the lawn before the house.

"And I to you," she replied. "It was kind of you to ask us to come
here."

"I suppose Mrs. Melcombe has decided to marry again," he began.

"Yes, but she would like to tell you about that herself."

"All right. I consider, Laura dear, that you have much more claim upon
me than upon her."

"Do you, Valentine, do you?"

As they walked down into the orchard, Laura shed a few agitated tears;
then she sat down on a grassy bank, and while Valent