He was close beside her as she turned from the window; and thinking he saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes, he laid a detaining hand on her arm. "You must be happy to-night, Dot," he said, "for my sake. I should like all the world to be so, and you, my little sister, more than all the rest." She let him kiss her on the cheek, but stood silent, with lowered eyes. "What is it, child,--don't you rejoice with me, when I am happier than ever before in my life?" He gently took her chin in his hand and raised her downcast face. In an instant her arms were clasped about his neck and her head buried against his breast. Just then they heard Aunt Lettice, in the hall, calling as if she supposed Dorothy to be above stairs. "Come, Dot," urged her brother,--"they are waiting for us, and we must be off." And kissing her, he quietly unclasped her clinging arms. At this she drew herself away from him, and fixing her eyes searchingly upon his face, said, "You are so happy, Jack, are n't you, because you and Mary love each other?" "Why, surely," he replied, wondering at the words, and at her way of speaking them. But he smiled as he looked into her troubled face. "Do you not think, Jack," she asked, still with that strange look in her eyes, "that when love comes in, it changes all of one's world?" He now laughed outright. But she paid no attention to his gayety, going on in a way to have troubled him had he been less selfishly happy at the moment, "If you know this so well, Jack, you will never cease to love me, if ever love comes to change my own world, the same as it has yours? No matter what you may feel is wrong about it, you will not blame me?" "Why, Dot, little girl, whatever are you dreaming about,--what should make you talk in this way?" And he looked at her with real anxiety. But she only laughed, and passing her hand across her eyes, answered nervously, "I don't know, Jack,--I was but thinking on future possibilities." "Rather upon the most remote impossibilities," he said laughingly. "But come, child, think no more of anything but this,--that 't is high time for you to put on your cloak and come to see your brother take unto himself a wife, who is to be your own dear sister." "I am glad it is Mary Broughton," Dorothy said quietly, as she took her cloak from a chair. "So am I," he laughed, as he wrapped the warm garment about her, shutting away all her pink sweetness with its heavy folds. Then, while he helped her to draw the hood over her curly head, "What if it were Polly Chine, now?" "Then," she answered with an odd smile, "you would have to fight Hugh Knollys." They were passing through the door, and he said with a keen glance at her, "I've good cause to know better than that, Dot." But she gave no heed to this, and they joined the others outside.