“I can’t be! No, no, don’t pester me with questions, or lecture me on the proprieties, Fanny! Very likely I have taken leave of my senses—indeed, I sometimes fear I have!—but either I shall come about, or—or—I shall not! And as for the rest of the world, it may go to the devil!”

Fanny could only conclude that she was as much in love as the Major, and wished that he would come to the point. Why he did not do so she was at a loss to understand, and was beginning to wonder if some impediment perhaps existed, when, to her surprise, he was ushered into the drawing-room in” Laura Place one afternoon, and said, as he grasped her hand: “I hoped I might find you at home! Serena is out, I know: it is you I particularly wish to see! You are her guardian—the properest person to be consulted! You know her—I believe you must be aware of the nature of the feelings which I—Lady Spenborough, in the joy of seeing her again, hearing her voice, touching her hand, all other considerations were forgotten! I allowed myself—” He broke off, trying to collect himself, and took a few hasty steps about the room.

Filled with trepidation, she said, after a moment: “You allowed yourself, Major Kirkby—?”

“To be happy in a dream! A dream of years, which seemed suddenly to have turned to reality!”

“A dream! I beg your pardon, but why do you call it so?” she asked anxiously.

He turned, and came back to the fireside. “Should I not? Lady Spenborough, I ask myself that question again and again! I tell myself it could be reality, but I cannot silence the doubt—the scruple-that warns me it should not!”

His agitation, the strong emotion under which he was evidently labouring, the oppressed look upon his brow, all awoke her ready compassion. Her disposition was timid; she was always very shy with anyone whom she did not know well; but she felt no shyness upon this occasion. She said, with her pretty smile: “Will you not be seated, and tell me what it is that is troubling you? You know, I am very stupid, and I don’t at all understand what you mean!”

He threw her a grateful look, saying: “You are so very kind! I am talking like a fool, I suppose! I came to ask you—Lady Spenborough, should I be the most presumptuous dog alive to beg Serena to marry me?”

Astonishment widened her eyes. “Presumptuous? But—but why?”

“You don’t think so? But have you considered? You know, I fancy, that the feelings I entertain are not—are not of recent birth! It is nearly seven years since I first saw her, and from that day those feelings have remained unchanged! She appeared to me then like some heavenly creature descended to earth to make every other woman seem commonplace! Her beauty, her grace, the very music of her voice, I could never forget! They have remained with me, haunted all my dreams—” He stopped, reddening, and tried to laugh. “I am talking like a fool again!”

“No, no!” she breathed. “Pray do not think so! Go on, if you please!”

He stared down at his hands, lying clasped between his knees. “Well! You are aware, I daresay, that I had the temerity to raise my eyes—too high!”

“You should not say so,” she interpolated gently.

“It was true! Then I thought otherwise. I was very young! Rank and fortune seemed to me to be of no account when set in the scales against such an attachment as I believed ours to be! I think I never forgave those that parted us until now, when the treasure I had believed unattainable seems to be within my reach, and I see—as any man of honour must!—all the force of the arguments which were advanced against me, seven years ago!”

Again she interrupted him. “Forgive me! But seven years ago she was just come out, and you were a younger son, with no prospects! She is her own mistress now, and you are not a boy, just joined, and proud, as Serena once told me, of your first regimentals. Then, had she been permitted to marry you, she must have followed the drum; today, it is otherwise, is it not?”

He looked up, fixing his eyes upon her intently. “I have come into the property which I never thought to inherit, but it is not large. Indeed, in her eyes the estate must seem a small one, and brings me what I should rather call an easy competence than a handsome fortune. The elegances of life I can command, but not its luxuries! The house to which I should take her, though I have been used to hear it spoken of as commodious, cannot compare with Milverley. I was never at Milverley, but I have visited such places. I have even stayed in one or two, and I know that beside the size and style of such an establishment my poor little manor must be dwarfed indeed. I could afford, I think, to hire a house in town for the Season, but it could not be a mansion, like Spenborough House.”

“Oh!” she cried involuntarily. “Can you suppose that such considerations as that would weigh with Serena?”

“No! Her mind is too lofty—her disposition too generous; If she gave her heart, she would, I think, be ready to live in a cottage! It is with me that those considerations weigh! They must do so—and the more heavily because she would laugh them aside!”

“I don’t know what any woman could want more than what you can offer her,” Fanny said wistfully.

“Lady Spenborough, are you sincere? You don’t think it would be wrong in me to ask her to be my wife?”

“No, indeed! To be sure, I cannot feel that a cottage would do for Serena,” said Fanny, quite unable to picture Serena in such a setting, “because she doesn’t like to feel herself cooped-up. Besides, you could scarcely keep servants in a cottage, and, with all the will in the world, Major Kirkby, she could never manage without!”

He could not help laughing. “I should think not indeed!”

“You see,” Fanny explained, “she has always had so many servants to wait upon her that she has never been obliged to attend very much to domestic matters. But I daresay you have a good housekeeper?”

“Of course! I didn’t mean that she would have to sweep floors, or cook the dinner, or even tell the maids what they must do. My mother was used to direct the servants, but since she has lived in Bath Mrs Harbury has attended to all such matters, and could very well continue to do so, if Serena wished it.”

“I expect she would wish it,” said Fanny, with lively memories of Serena’s unconcern with the domestic arrangements at the Dower House. She added reflectively: “It is the oddest thing! I am sure Serena never groomed a horse in her life, or swept out a stall, but she would manage a stable far more easily than a house!”

These words brought another scruple to his mind. He said: “Her hunting! Could she bear to give that up? Even if I could endure to let her risk her neck, my home is in Kent, and that is poor hunting country—humbug country, I expect she would call it! There are several packs, but I have never been much addicted to the sport. I could become a subscriber, but I doubt—She told me once that she thought nothing equal to the Cottesmore country!”

“Yes,” said Fanny. “Shabituéhe and her papa were used to visit Lord Lonsdale every year, at Lowther Hall. But for the most part, of course, they hunted with the Duke of Beaufort’s pack. I believe—but I have never hunted myself I—that that is very good country too.” She smiled at him, as something very like a groan burst from him. “Major Kirkby, you are too despondent! It would be a very poor creature who would set such considerations as that in the balance!”

“I know she would not! But I should wish her to have everything she desired!”

“Well, if she desired it so very much, perhaps it could be contrived. You might purchase a lodge in the Shires, or—”

“That I might do, but maintain a dozen or so first-rate hunters I could not!”

“But Serena has a very large fortune of her own!” said Fanny.

He sprang up, and began to walk about the room again. “Yes! I have no knowledge—but it was bound to be so! I wish to God it were not! You will understand me, Lady Spenborough, when I say that I had rather by far she were penniless than that there should be sogreat a disparity—as I fear there must be—between our fortunes!”

“I do understand you,” she replied warmly. “Such a sentiment cannot but do you honour, but, believe me, it would be most wrong, most foolish, to let a scruple stand in the way of—perhaps—the happiness of you both!”

He came striding back to her, and caught her hand to his lips. “I have no words with which to thank you! If I have your consent, I care for no other! You know Serena—you love her—and you tell me to go forward!”

“Oh, yes, but I am not her guardian, you know! She is quite her own mistress! At least—” She paused, suddenly struck by an unwelcome thought. “I had forgot! Oh, dear!”

.”She has a guardian? Someone to whom I should apply before approaching her?”

“No, no! Only her fortune is—is strangely tied-up, and perhaps—But I should not be talking of her affairs!”

He pressed her hand slightly. “Do not! I hope it may be so securely tied-up that I could not touch it if I would! I must go. If I could express to you my gratitude for your kindness, your understanding—!” He smiled down at her with a good deal of archness. The word dowager will never again have the power to terrify me!”

She laughed, and blushed. He again kissed her hand, and turned to go away, just as the door opened, and Serena, in her walking dress, came into the room.

“I thought I recognized the modish hat reposing on the table in the hall!” she remarked, drawing off her gloves, and tossing them aside. “How do you do. Hector?” Her eyes went from him to Fanny, and the smile in them deepened. “Now, what conspiracy have you been hatching to make you both look so guilty?”