she walked downstairs, her feet did not seem to touch the ground. What a poor, small, ignoble little being she had been not to read him all the time! but now that the illumination had come, and she saw his conduct from first to last, Anne saw, or thought she saw, that everything was right, everything noble. She approved, and was happy. She forgot Mr. Loseby and the morning’s business, and walked towards the hall with a serene splendour about her, a glory as of the moon and the stars, all beautiful in reflected light. There was nobody in the hall, and the kind Curate when he came in did nothing but pass through it. ‘I suppose I shall find them in the drawing-room?’ he said, waving his hand and walking past. Anne accepted the passing greeting gladly. What did she want with Charley? He went through the hall while the other came to her side. ‘You wanted me, Anne?’ ‘Wanted you--oh, how I have wanted you!--there has been so much to do; but I approve, Cosmo--I approve everything you have done. I feel it right that I should have stood alone till now. You help me more in doing my duty, than if you had done all for me. You were right all along, all through----’ ‘Thank you, my dearest,’ he said. ‘But, Anne, I see in what you say that there have been moments in which you have not approved. This was what I feared--and it would have been so much easier to do what was pleasant.’ ‘No--I do not think there were moments--at least not anything more. Cosmo, what do you think of me now, a woman without a penny? I wonder if you approve of me as I approve of you.’ ‘I think I do more, dear: I admire, though I don’t think I could have been so brave myself. If you had not been just the girl you are, I fear I should have said, Throw me over and let us wait.’ ‘You did say it,’ she said in a lower tone; ‘that is the only thing of all that I do not like in you.’ ‘To think you should have undergone such a loss for me!--and I am not worth it--it humbles me, Anne. I could not believe it was possible. Up to the last minute I felt it could not be.’ ‘I knew it would be,’ she said softly: was not there something else that Cosmo had to say? She waited for half a minute with a certain wistfulness in her eyes. The glory of her approval faded a little--a very little. To be perfect he had to say something more. ‘If thou wouldst be perfect!’ Was not even the Saviour himself disappointed (though he knew what was in man) when the young ruler whom he loved at first sight did not rise to that height which was opened to him? Anne could not say the same words, but she felt them in her heart. Oh, Cosmo, if thou wouldst be perfect! but he did not see it, or he did not do it at least. ‘I cannot understand it yet,’ he went on. ‘Such injustice, such cruelty--do I pain you, my darling? I cannot help it. If it had been only the postponement of all our hopes, that would have been bad enough: but to take your rights from you arbitrarily, absolutely, without giving you any choice----’