For the time at least he had put the world behind him. And it was in pure exultation and the joyous anticipation of what was to come that he approached the house. He came, a victor from the fight; nor, he reflected, was it every suitor who had it in his power to lay such offerings at the feet of his mistress. In the eye of the world, indeed, he was no longer what he had been; for the matchmaking mother he had lost his value. But he had still so much to give which Mary had not, he could still so alter the tenor of her life, he could still so lift her in the social scale, those hopes which she was to share still flew on pinions so ambitious—ay, to the very scattering of garters and red-ribbons—that his heart was full of the joy of giving. He must not be blamed if he felt as King Cophetua when he stooped to the beggar-maiden, or as the Lord of Burleigh when he woo’d the farmer’s daughter. After all, he did but rejoice that she had so little and he had so much; that he could give and she could grace. When he came to the house he paused a moment in wonder that when all things were altered, his prospects, views, plans, its face rose unchanged. Then he knocked boldly; the time for hesitation was past. He asked for Miss Smith—thinking it likely that he would have to wait until the school rose at noon. The maid, however, received him as if she expected him, and ushered him at once into a room on the left of the entrance. He stood, holding his hat, waiting, listening; but not for long. The door had scarcely closed on the girl before it opened again, and Mary Smith came in. She met his eyes, and started, blushed a divine rosy-red and stood wide-eyed and uncertain, with her hand on the door. “Did you not expect me?” he said, taken aback on his side. For this was not the Mary Smith with whom he travelled on the coach; nor the Mary Smith with whom he had talked in the Square. This was a Mary Smith, no less beautiful, but gay and fresh as the morning, in dainty white with a broad blue sash, with something new, something of a franker bearing in her air. “Did you not expect me?” he repeated gently, advancing a step towards her. “No,” she murmured, and she stood blushing before him, blushing more deeply with every second. For his eyes were beginning to talk, and to tell the old tale. “Did not Miss Sibson get my letter?” he asked gently. “I think not,” she murmured. “Then I have all—to do,” he said nervously. It was—it was certainly a harder thing to do than he had expected. “Will you not sit down, please,” he pleaded. “I want you to listen to me.” For a moment she looked as if she would flee instead. Then she let him lead her to a seat. He sat down within reach of her. “And you did not know that it was I?” he said, feeling the difficulty increase with every second. “No.” “I hope,” he said, hesitating, “that you are glad that it is?”