'You know, Babiole, I am not asking you to marry me now, or at any future time. That must be for a handsomer, more dashing fellow than I. But I want you to understand that I am your guardian up to the time when the dashing young fellow turns up; and till then we will be just as we have always been. You understand, child, that there is to be no binding tie on you at all, nothing new except the understanding that I am answerable to your father for your safety and happiness. Now, are you willing to have me?' I tried to put the question as a joke, but I was much moved. She put her hand into mine without at first answering, but her eyes were full of tears before I had ended. 'I will do whatever you wish, now and always, Mr. Maude,' she said so sweetly, so softly, that at once I began to realise the peril to myself of what I had done, as a great yearning seized me to draw the little creature into my arms, and tell her what a poor chance it was that she would ever find among the fair-featured sons of men a slave so docile as I would be for just the right to cherish her. I wish I had, now. Then, however, I only said, 'That's right,' in a strangled voice; and we began to go down the hill together. But I discovered that this explanation, which was to have been so small and simple a thing, had already changed in some degree the character of our intercourse. Babiole gave me her hand to help her down, as freely and simply as she had often done before; but it seemed to me now that it was the hand of a fair young woman, instead of the hand of a child. It was some change in the girl herself, and not in me, I felt sure, for I had been fully conscious of my own love and my own longings ever since, on my return from Norway, I had found her still with the sweet flower-face, but with the form and shy proud manner of a budding woman. I considered this phenomenon as we crossed the wild bare slope beneath the fir-trees, and as we found our way through the growing darkness of the oak branches, with the silver water shining before us in the distance, and the mist gathering about us as we went down. There was no touch of coquetry about her manner whereby I could take courage, but a very pretty gravity which seemed to denote that even such a poor thing as a temporary and make-believe engagement to marry demanded that one should put away childish things and talk about the affairs of the nation.