"If you will make me welcome, then I will stay. It depends upon you altogether; I will stay or I will go away, as you please. It is you that must decide," the young man said. He was standing on the other side of the little table, his face lit up with the enthusiasm of sympathy and pleasure. It was sweet to him to have made so profound an impression, and the emotion in Miss Jean's mind reflected itself in him. He admired her, he loved her for feeling so much. It threw a tender light upon everything about her; there was no effort wanting to look tenderly and speak tenderly with all the emotion of a genuine sentiment. His eyes glowed with softness and warmth, his voice took a pleading tone, he was ready to have put himself at her feet, actually as well as metaphorically, so much was he touched and moved by this sympathetic strain of feeling. Miss Jean, for her part, gathering her work into her hand, and recovering her self slowly, looked up with eyes of simple surprise at the extraordinary aspect of the young stranger. "You are meaning--? to be sure, we will be very glad, very happy to have you for a neighbour; but, knowing so little of the circumstances, how can we, that are but strangers----" They were both so pre-occupied that they had not heard anything but the sound of their own voices, and, when another suddenly interposed, they started as if a shot had been fired beside them. "Jean, Margaret sent me to tell you dinner was on the table," was the peaceful intimation this voice made. Lewis turned round with a nervous impatience, finding the interruption vexatious. He turned round and found himself suddenly in a presence he had never been clearly conscious of before. What was it? To external appearance a young, slight girl, fair as Scottish beauty ought to be, with light locks just tinged here and there with the brighter light which makes them golden, a complexion of the most dazzling purity, eyes, somewhat astonished, of deep blue, and features perhaps not equal in quality to all the rest, but harmonious enough in their youth and softness. This was what she was in actual flesh and blood; but as she appeared to Lewis, at that moment actually feeling, and with all his might endeavouring to impress upon a middle-aged woman, the fervour of his devotion, and his dependence upon her fiat, she was something more. She was Youth in person, she was Love, and Hope, and a sort of incarnate delight. He looked at her, and the words he had been speaking died from his lips, the enthusiasm he had been feeling was blown out as if it had been the flame of a candle. He forgot himself and good manners, and his position as a stranger, and stood, his lips apart, his eyes wide opened, gazing at her at once in amazement and admiration.