“That is too much to say: but I know from my own case that there are,” the young man said. “I would like to hear your own case.” He laughed again. “You are very kind to be so much interested in a stranger: but I must settle matters for my kind guardian. She has not been a happy woman, I don’t know why,--though he was as good a man as ever lived:--and now she is in very poor health--oh, really ill. I scarcely thought I could have got her to England alive. To see Dora is all she seems to wish for. Help me, oh, help me to get her that gratification!” he cried. Miss Bethune smiled upon him in reply, with an involuntary movement of her hands towards him. She was pale, and a strange light was on her face. “I will do that if I can,” she said. “I will do it if it is possible. If I help you what will you give me in return?” The youth looked at her in mild surprise. He did not understand what she could mean. “Give you in return?” he asked, with astonishment. “Ay, my young man, for my hire; everybody has a price, as I daresay you have heard said--which is a great lie, and yet true enough. Mine is not just a common price, as you will believe. I’m full of fancies, a--whimsical kind of a being. You will have to pay me for my goodwill.” He rose up from the seat under the tree, and, taking off his hat again, made her a solemn bow. “Anything that is within my power I will gladly give to secure my good guardian what she wishes. I owe everything to her.” Miss Bethune sat looking up at him with that light on her face which made it unlike everything that had been seen before. She was scarcely recognisable, or would have been to those who already knew her. To the stranger standing somewhat stiffly before her, surprised and somewhat shocked by the strange demand, it seemed that this, as he had thought, plain middle-aged woman had suddenly become beautiful.