Miggles subsided into instant tears. "It's too good of you. Oh, my dear, my dear, I couldn't--I couldn't let you. It's too good of you, too sweet. I shall always remember and bless you for thinking of it, but it would be too selfish--too grasping. I could not allow it." "Miggles, listen! I've been puzzling what to do with myself this next year; I have no home, now that my aunt is dead, and no tie to any special place. That's a lonely feeling, Miggles, when you are only twenty-three. It would be a solution of the problem if you could let me come to you. I sounded Mr Goring and he was willing; more than willing, delighted at the idea. And I have some money of my own, you know, dear, and as Mr Goring would not hear of my paying anything towards the household expenses, I am going to spend it on pleasures and luxuries. I have a lovely plan--to buy a comfortable little pony carriage in which to drive you along the lanes, and give you fresh air without fatigue. Then, when you don't feel inclined to go out I'll use the horse for riding. I love riding, and it will be good exercise to scour the countryside. Perhaps sometimes there'll be a Meet. If there were hunting I should feel quite gay. I _want_ to come, if you care to have me." "Care!" Miggles laughed, cried, gasped, ejaculated, panted, in such extravagance of joy, such depths of humility, such paeans of gratitude, that Vanna had to exercise her prerogative as nurse, administer a soothing draught, and insist upon a rest forthwith. "Not another word. If you are good and obedient, I'll come; if you are not, I won't. I am not going to saddle myself with a rebellious patient. So now you know. Kiss me, and shut your eyes--" "But," protested Miggles, "but--but--" Long after Vanna had left the room she lay awake, staring with wistful, puzzled eyes at the opposite wall. A social creature, devoted to her kind, no one but herself knew how heavily the prospect of loneliness had weighed upon her. Vanna's proposition had been like a flash of sunshine lighting up a grey country, but she could not rejoice with a full heart until she was satisfied of the girl's happiness. "A young thing like that shut up with an old, ailing woman--it's not right, not fitting. I must not be selfish. I need quiet at the end of my days, but at twenty-three! To take her to that lonely place, away from all her friends: can it be right? I'd love her, and mother her, but with all my will I can't do the thing she needs most of all--be young with her again. She is sad, dear child, and it's only a friend of her own age who can comfort and cheer--" Suddenly Miggles jerked in her bed; the fixed eyes brightened; the heavy cheeks broadened into a smile. "Ah-h!" she murmured happily. "Ah-h! _That_ is well, _that's_ well. That will bring it all right"; and nestling down in the pillows, she composed herself happily to sleep.