‘Very fond,’ said Cara, with composure; ‘and the boys are kind. They come often in the morning to see me. I am not sure which of them I like best. Edward has just come home. He is the one that is going to India; and Oswald writes poetry and is very clever. I go out with Mrs. Meredith in the afternoon--you must not think I am not very fond of her, Aunt Cherry--but then she is fond of so many people. You should see her afternoons. She is at home always at five, and the number of people who come! and she looks at them all alike, and listens to them as if she thought of no one else. Yes, I am very fond of her; but I like people to belong to me, not to everybody--like you, Aunt Cherry; you are mine, mine!’ the girl cried, with the flattery of exclusive appropriation which is so sweet to all, and especially to those who are beyond the first fascinations of life. ‘Yes, my darling,’ said Miss Cherry, with tears in her soft eyes; ‘me, and everything I have and everything I am, to do whatever you please with.’ She had a right to be more lavish than any lover in her self-offering; for no love could have been so ready to give up will and wish, which are the last things any human creature likes to sacrifice, for the sake of the beloved. Miss Cherry would have allowed herself to be cut into little pieces at any moment, for the sake of the child. But these were not the kind of confidences she expected. She made an effort to bring Cara back to the other ground, and to elicit from her some tender confession. Romantic old Cherry was disappointed not to have seen some trace of this confidence, irrepressible, eager to unbosom itself, but she was not hopeless of it still. ‘I saw you go in,’ she said. ‘I watched you from the window, Cara. Was that one of the Merediths that was with you?--Very nice-looking, rather dark. Which was that? You seemed to be great friends.’ ‘This afternoon! Were you at the window? How stupid I was not to see you! I will never come near the house again without looking up at the windows. It was Oswald, Aunt Cherry; he is always the one who has time to go out with us. Do you think a man ought to have so much time? Yes, he is nice-looking, I think; he _is_ like a poet; and he is the one who chiefly stands by me, and comes to see me in the morning. He never seems to have anything particular to do,’ Cara added, with a slight air of vexation, which raised Miss Cherry’s hopes. ‘But if he writes?’ she said, with a little awe. ‘Ah, he does that at night; he sits up writing, and all day long he seems just to do what he likes. They laugh at him for it, but he never minds. Mrs. Meredith sometimes says---- Ah!’ cried Cara, stopping short, and drawing a long sighing breath. A sort of muffled hollow sound went through the house--the shutting of the great hall-door, which seemed to vibrate upwards from floor to floor. ‘What is it, Cara?’ said Miss Cherry, whose nerves were weak, and who jumped at any noise, even when she knew really what it was.