"Yes, child!" he answered--"It is time! But I cannot talk about angels or anything else just now--it is growing late in the afternoon and you must not stay here too long. Come to-morrow or next day, and we'll consult together as to what is best to be done for your happiness--" "For yours!" she interposed, gently. He smiled, curiously. "Very well! As you will! For mine!" CHAPTER X Lord Blythe stood at the open window of his sitting-room in the Grand Hotel at Bellaggio--a window opening out to a broad balcony and commanding one of the most enchanting views of the lake and mountains ever created by Divine Beneficence for the delight of man. The heavenly scene, warm with rich tints of morning in Italy, glowed like a jewel in the sun: picturesque boats with little red and blue awnings rocked at the edge of the calm lake, in charge of their bronzed and red-capped boatmen, waiting for hire,--the air was full of fragrance, and every visible thing appealed to beauty-loving eyes with exquisite and irresistible charm. His attention, however, had wandered far from the enjoyable prospect,--he was reading and re-reading a letter he had just received from Miss Leigh, in which certain passages occurred which caused him some uneasiness. On leaving England he had asked her to write regularly, giving him all the news of Innocent, and she had readily undertaken what to her was a pleasing duty. His thoughts were constantly with the little house in Kensington, where the young daughter of his dead friend worked so patiently to bring forth the fruits of her genius and live independently by their results, and his intense sympathy for the difficult position in which she had been placed through no fault of her own and the courage with which she had surmounted it, was fast deepening into affection. He rather encouraged this sentiment in himself with the latent hope that possibly when he returned to England she might still be persuaded to accept the position he was so ready to offer her--that of daughter to him and heiress,--and just now he was troubled by an evident anxiety which betrayed itself in Miss Leigh's letter--anxiety which she plainly did her best to conceal, but which nevertheless made itself apparent.