Nathan went and told Lucy all that had transpired, and if that honest man had nursed the delusion that his darling had succeeded in, even partially, dislodging Philip Fuller from her heart, the pitiful yearning, the longing look that flashed from her bright hazel eye, the blood-forsaken cheek and lip, as he told of her lover’s danger, drove the fond delusion away for ever. “The squire asks to see you, Lucy. But you can decline it, if you like, my darling.” Lucy thought for a moment, and then, with a woman’s quick intuition as to what is best, said, “I’ll see him.” Casting aside her apron, in which she had been attending to household duties and standing a little--was there ever a woman that did not?--before the kitchen looking-glass to assure herself that she was not a perfect fright, Lucy entered the parlour, and for the first time Squire Fuller saw the fairy who had so bewitched his son that the effect of her glamour was his only hope of life. He rose to his feet, stepped back a pace or two, and bowed as respectfully as he had ever done in royal drawing-room to lady of high degree. Habited in a light morning dress of printed calico, with collar and cuffs of purest white, and a small crimson bow beneath her throat, her piquant beauty and grace were quite sufficient to excuse either Philip Fuller, or anybody else, for plunging head over ears in love so deeply that emerging again was an impossibility. “Good-morning, Miss Blyth,” said the squire. “Your father has informed you of my errand.” “Is Master Philip _very_ ill, sir?” and tone and eye and cheek betrayed how much the question meant. “Unto death, I fear!” The words were a wail. The proud lips quivered, and a couple of tears forced their way, in spite of him, and both Nathan Blyth and his daughter saw something of the all-absorbing love he bore for his only son. “Did he--does he know that you have come?” “He knows nothing of it, and scarce of any other thing,” said the troubled father. “He lies almost unconscious, and as though he had already done with time. Dr. Jephson says there is but one hope. My dear young lady, his father asks you with a breaking heart, ‘Come and help to save my boy!’” A consent was about to leap from her sympathetic heart, but still, mindful of honour, truth and duty to the last, she only said, “Send Dr. Jephson here.” Both the squire and her father read decision in her face; the former bowed and took his departure. He owned to himself that he had been in presence of a grace and beauty such as he had never seen since those days long gone by, when his own first and only love, to whom he saw a strong resemblance in the radiant form before him, was yet untorn from his young heart by the unpitying hand of Death.