Her father being still asleep, Jane, all in a sweet confusion, took her work upstairs, and sat down by the dressing-room fire to wait till he should awake. But he still slept on, and by-and-by it grew late, so she sent the servants to bed, and made up her mind to sit by his side till morning. Just then nothing could have been more grateful to her. No thought of sleep would be possible to her for hours to come. She wanted to think over the events of that wonderful evening—to think over them in silence and alone. The time to analyze her feelings had not yet come: she did not care to make the attempt: she only wanted to realize quietly to herself the one sweet blissful fact, that she was loved, and by the one person in the whole world to whom her own love could be given in return. What happy thoughts nestled round her young heart in the midnight quietude of the old house! “He loves me!” she whispered to herself. But the night wind, listening at the window, caught the syllables and whispered them back, and then rushed gleefully away to tell the trees and the flowers, that began already to feel the warmth of spring in their veins, and the little birds sleeping cosily in their nests beneath the winter moon, and Jane’s secret was a secret no longer. It was nearly three o’clock when the Squire woke up from his long sleep. It was a minute or two before he could collect his thoughts, and call to mind all that had happened. “You are no better than a little simpleton for sitting up,” he said, gruffly. “As if I couldn’t take care of myself when I awoke!” Then he drew her on to his knee and kissed her tenderly. “Get me some bread and cheese and ale,” he said. “I’ll have supper and breakfast in one.” “Won’t you have something different from bread and cheese, papa?” she asked. “There is some game pie and——” “No, nothing but bread and cheese,” he said, gloomily. “That seems about the only thing I shall be able to afford in time to come.” So Jane went down into the lower part of the house, and brought up some bread and cheese and ale; but she brought some game pie also, and when she put a plateful of the latter article before her father, he ate it without a word, and without seeming to know what it was he was eating. He did not speak another word till he had done. “Jenny, you are a clever girl,” he said abruptly, at last, “but do you think you are clever enough to earn your own living?” Jane laughed. “Your question is rather a strange one,” she said. “I will answer it as a woman answers most questions—by asking another. Why do you ask me?” “Because if I were to die to-morrow, or next month, or next year, that is certainly what you would have to do.” “And I don’t doubt my ability to do it,” said Jane, with spirit. “Only, papa, you are not going to die either next month, or next year, so that the subject is one which we need not discuss further.”