"My Lily is keeping company with a young man," she said, after a pause; "a respectable young chap he is, a bus-conductor. This is his night off, and they're gone to the Promenade Concert. I didn't like her going at first, but, bless you, you have to give in. Young folk are young folk, all the world over.... But I must be getting downstairs again. I have to do everything myself to-night. Ah! when a girl falls in love, she forgets her mother. It's natural, I suppose. Well, Mr. Larch, it will be your turn soon, I hope." With that she left the room quickly, missing Richard's hurried disclaimer. "So you're engaged, Lily," he said to the girl next morning. Lily blushed and nodded; and as he looked at her eyes, he poignantly longed for the evening. CHAPTER XXI They sat by the window and talked till the day began to fade and the lamplighter had passed up the street. Several matters of business needed discussion,--the proving of Mr. Aked's will, the tenancy of the house and the opening of a new banking-account. Richard, who was acting informally as legal adviser, after the manner of solicitors' clerks towards their friends, brought from his pocket some papers for Adeline's signature. She took a pen immediately. "Where do I put my name?" "But you must read them first." "I shouldn't understand them a bit," she said; "and what is the use of employing a lawyer, if one is put to the trouble of reading everything one signs?" "Well--please yourself. To-morrow you will have to go before a commissioner for oaths and swear that certain things are true; you'll be compelled to read the affidavits." "That I won't! I shall just swear." "But you simply must." "Sha'n't. If I swear to fibs, it will be your fault." "Suppose I read them out to you?" "Yes, that would be nicer; but not now, after supper." For a few moments there was silence. She stood up and drew her finger in fanciful curves across the window-pane. Richard watched her, with a smile of luxurious content. It appeared to him that all her movements, every inflection of her voice, her least word, had the authenticity and the intrinsic grace of natural phenomena. If she turned her head or tapped her foot, the gesture was right,--having the propriety which springs from absolute self-unconsciousness. Her mere existence from one moment to the next seemed in some mysterious way to suggest a possible solution of the riddle of life. She illustrated nature. She was for him intimately a part of nature, the great Nature which hides itself from cities. To look at her afforded him a delight curiously similar to that which the townsman derives from a rural landscape. Her face had little conventional beauty; her conversation contained no hint either of intellectual powers or of a capacity for deep feeling. But in her case, according to his view, these things were unnecessary, would in fact have been superfluous. She _was_ and that sufficed.