‘Yes; all the information about us goes out there. Edward gives satisfaction, but not the rest of us. It is not easy to please people so far off who have not you to judge, but only your actions set down in black and white. Well, I suppose I must go now--my actions don’t tell for much: “Went into the house next door, and got a great deal of good from little Cara.” That would not count, you see; not even if I put down, “Cheered up little Cara, who was mopish.” Might I say that?’ ‘Yes, indeed; you have cheered me up very much,’ said Cara, giving him her hand. Oswald stooped over her a moment, and the girl thought he was going to kiss her, which made her retreat a step backwards, her countenance flaming, and all the shy dignity and quick wrath of her age stirred into movement. But he only laughed and squeezed her hand, and ran downstairs, his feet ringing young and light through the vacant house. Cara would have gone to the window and looked after him but for that--was it a threatening of a visionary kiss? How silly she was! Of course he did not mean anything of the kind. If he did, it was just as if she had been his sister, and Cara felt that her momentary alarm showed her own silliness, a girl that had never been used to anything. How much an only child lost by being an only child, she reflected gravely, sitting down after he left her by the fire. How pleasant it would have been to have a brother like Oswald. And if he should be a poet! But this excited Cara more when he was talking to her than after he was gone. He did not fall in with her ideas of the poet, who was a being of angelic type to her imagination, not a youth with laughter glancing from his eyes.