“Nothing that could--matter to you? I was afraid not,” said Fairfax; “that is what I have been fearing you would say.” “Of course it does not matter to us,” said Alice, “how should it? Why should it matter to any one? We are not such poor creatures, Mr. Fairfax. You think you--like us; but you have a very low opinion of us after all.” “No, I don’t think I like you. I think something very different. You know what I think,” he said. “It all depends upon what you will say. I have waited till yesterday was over and would not say a word; but now the world had begun again. How is it to begin for me? It has not been good for very much in the past; but there might be new heavens and a new earth if---- Alice!” he cried, coming close to her, his face full of emotion, his hands held out. “Mr. Fairfax!” she said, drawing back a step. “There is mamma to think of. I cannot go against her. I must do what she says.” “Just one word, whatever comes of it, to myself--from you to me--from you to me! And after,” he said, breathless, “she shall decide.” Alice did not say any word. Perhaps she had not time for it--perhaps it was not needed. But just then the curtains that half veiled the west room were drawn aside with a fretful motion. “If it is you who are there, Alice and Fairfax,” said Sir Gus--and in his voice, too, there was a fretful tone, “I just want to say one word. I’ll make it all right for you. You need not be afraid of mamma. I’ll make it all right with her. There! that was all I wanted to say.” When Sir Gus had delivered himself of this little speech he went off again very hastily to the hall, not meaning to disturb any tender scene. The idea had struck him all at once, and he carried it out without giving himself time to think. It did him a little good; but yet he was cross, not like himself, Bell and Marie thought. There was a fire in the hall, too, which the children, coming in hot and flushed from their games, had found great fault with. “You will roast us all up; you will make us thin and brown like yourself,” said Bell, who was always saucy. “Am I so thin and so brown?” the poor little gentleman had said. “Yes, I suppose so, not like you, white and red.” “Oh, Bell, how could you talk so, to hurt his feelings?” said little Marie, as they stood by the open door and watched him, standing sunning himself in the warmth. His brown face looked very discontented, sad, yet soft, with some feeling that was not anger. The little girls began to draw near. For one thing the autumn air was cool in the afternoon, and their white frocks were not so thick as their black ones. They began to see a little reason in the fire. Then Bell, always the foremost, sprang suddenly forward, and clasped his arm in both hers. “He is quite right to have a fire,” she said. “And I hate you for being cross about it, Marie. He is the kindest old brother that ever was. I don’t mind being roasted, or any thing else Gus pleases.”