and his fortune to Sara was premature, if not unnecessary. It was while he was thus opening up anew the whole matter, that Sara at last ventured to betray the tenor of her thoughts. “Papa,” she said, “I asked you a question just now, and you did not answer me; but answer me now, for I want to know. This--this--gentleman--Mr. Powys. Is he--a gentleman, papa?” “I told you he was my clerk, Sara,” said Mr. Brownlow, much annoyed by the question. “I know you did, but that is not quite enough. A man may be a gentleman though he is a clerk. I want a plain answer,” said Sara, looking up again into her father’s face. And he was not without the common weakness of Englishmen for good connections--very far from that. He would not have minded, to tell the truth, giving a thousand pounds or so on the spot to any known family of Powys which would have adopted the young Canadian into its bosom. “I don’t know what Powys has to do with the matter,” he said; and then unconsciously his tone changed. “It is a good name; and I think--I imagine--he must belong somehow to the Lady Powys who once lived near Masterton. His father was well born, but, I believe,” added Mr. Brownlow, with a slight shiver, “that he married--beneath him. I think so. I can’t say I am quite sure.” “I should have thought you would have known every thing,” said Sara. “Of course, papa, you know I am dying to ask you a hundred questions, but I won’t, if you will only just tell me one thing. A girl may promise to accept any one--whom--whom her people wish her to have; but is it as certain,” said Sara, solemnly, “that he--will have me?” Then Mr. Brownlow stood still for a moment, looking with wonder, incomprehension, and a certain mixture of awe and dismay upon his child. Sara, obeying his movement, stood still also with her eyes cast down, and just showing a glimmer of malice under their lids, with the color glowing softly in her cheeks, with the ghost of a smile coming and going round her pretty mouth. “Oh child, child!” was all Mr. Brownlow said. He was moved to smile in spite of himself, but he was more moved to wonder. After all, she was making a joke of it--or was it really possible that, in this careless smiling way, the young creature, who had thrust her life into his hands like a flower, to be disposed of as he would, was going forward to meet all unknown evils and dangers? The sober, steady, calculating man could understand a great many things more abstruse, but he could not understand this.