"To me?" said Mr Ashburton, looking at her with a smile and a sudden look of interest; for it is always slightly exciting to the most philosophical mortal to know that somebody else's mind is full of him. "What you have said already is so flattering----" "I did not mean anything absurd," said Miss Marjoribanks. "Don't talk any nonsense, please. Mr Ashburton, do you know that old Mr Chiltern is dead?" Lucilla put the question solemnly, and her companion grew a little red as he looked at her. "It is not my fault," he said, though he still smiled; and then he grew redder and redder, though he ought to have been above showing such signs of emotion; and looked at her curiously, as if he would seize what she was going to say out of her eyes or her lips before it was said. "It is not anything to laugh about," said Lucilla. "He was a very nice old man; but he is dead, and somebody else must be Member for Carlingford: that was why I told you that my mind was full of you. I am not in the least superstitious," said Miss Marjoribanks, solemnly; "but when I stood there--there, just in front of Mr Holden's--you came into my mind like a flash of lightning. I was not thinking of you in the least, and you came into my mind like--like Minerva, you know. If it was not an intimation, I don't know what it was. And that was why I ran against you, and did not see you were there. Mr Ashburton, it is you who must be the man," said Lucilla. It was not a thing to speak lightly about, and for her part she spoke very solemnly; and as for Mr Ashburton, his face flushed deeper and deeper. He stood quite still in the excitement of the moment, as if she had given him a blow. "Miss Marjoribanks, I don't know how to answer you," he cried; and then he put out his hand in an agitated way and grasped her hand. "You are the only creature in Carlingford, man or woman, that has divined me," he said, in a trembling voice. It was a little public at the top of Grange Lane, where people were liable to pass at every moment; but still Miss Marjoribanks accepted the pressure of the hand, which, to be sure, had nothing whatever to do with love-making. She was more shy of such demonstrations than she had been in her confident youth, knowing that in most cases they never came to anything, and at the same time that the spectators kept a vivid recollection of them; but still, in the excitement of the moment, Miss Marjoribanks accepted and returned in a womanly way the pressure of Mr Ashburton's hand.