“My dear Johnnie,” said I, “I am very glad of anything that makes you happy--but there is surely no occasion to speak so strongly. Alice, I must remind you again, chose exactly the same life for herself that she supposed for you”---- “Alice has had her youth and her choice,” said Johnnie, with a calmer tone, and sinking, his first excitement over, into a chair; “but she does not think Maurice is likely to share that gray life of hers--Maurice, who, as you say yourself, is of no use in the world--nor Harry, whom they have all forgotten now he is in Australia, nor the children at home; only mamma when she is old, and _Johnnie_--well, it is of no use speaking. A man’s business is not to speak, but to work.” “That is very true, certainly,” said I: “but tell me, will you--if it is not wrong to ask--what has made this great change in your ideas, all at once?” “Ah, Mrs. Crofton, don’t you know?” cried Johnnie, blushing, a soft overpowering youthful blush, which would have done no discredit to Clara herself; and the poor, foolish boy looked at me with an appealing triumphant look, as if he at once entreated me to say, and defied me to deny that _she_ was altogether an angel, and he the very happiest of boys or men. “My dear boy,” said I, “don’t be angry with me. I’ve known you all your life, Johnnie. I don’t mean to say a word against Miss Reredos--but tell me, has there been any explanation between her and you?” He hesitated a moment, blushing still. “No,” he said, after a pause; “no--I have not been able to arrange my thoughts at all yet. I have thought of nothing but--but herself--and this unimaginable hope of happiness--and I am a man of honor, Mrs. Crofton. I will not speak to her till I know whether I have anything but love to offer--not because I am so base as to suppose that money could recommend a man to _her_, or so foolish as to think that I will ever have anything beyond _income_; but when I do speak, you understand, Mrs. Crofton, it is not for vague love-making, but to ask her to be my wife.” He looked at me with his sudden air of manhood and independence, again somewhat defiant. Heaven help the poor boy! I heard myself groaning aloud in the extremity of my bewilderment and confusion; poor Johnnie, with his superb self-assumption!--he, a fortnight ago, the cheerfulest of boy invalids, the kindest of widow’s sons!--and she, five years older than he, at the lowest reckoning, an experienced young lady, with dreams of settlements and trousseaux occupying her mature mind! Alack, alack! what was to come of it? I sat silent, almost gaping with wonderment at the boy. At last I caught at the idea of asking him what his prospects or intentions were--though without an idea that he had any prospects, or knew in the least what he was talking about. “You spoke of income, Johnnie--may I ask what you were thinking of?” Johnnie blushed once more, though after a different fashion; he grew confidential and eager--like himself.