"I think I must tell you something," returned her mother soothingly. "Dear little Hatty used to talk in the strangest way sometimes. One night when she had been very ill, and I was sitting beside her, she told me that she had had such a funny dream about you--that you and Mr. Sefton were going to be married, and that she had seen you dressed in white, and looking so happy, and then she said very wistfully, 'Supposing my dream should come true, mother, and our Bessie really married him, how nice that would be!' and she would speak of it more than once, until I was obliged to remind her that I never cared to talk of such subjects, and that I did not like my girls to talk of them, either. 'But, all the same, mother, Bessie will not be an old maid,' she persisted, with such a funny little smile, and then she left off to please me." "How strange!" replied Bessie thoughtfully. "I must tell Richard that; he was so kind about Hatty. Mother, is it not nice to be able to tell some one all one's thoughts, and be sure of their interest? That is how I begin to feel about Richard. He is always so kind and patient, and ready to hear everything, and he never laughs nor turn things into fun, as Tom does; and he is so clever; he knows things of which I am quite ignorant;" and Bessie rambled on in an innocent, girlish way of her lover's perfections, while her mother listened with a smile, remembering her own young days. "She is very simple," she said to her husband that night; "she thinks only of him; she does not seem to remember that he is rich, and that one day she will be mistress of The Grange. That is so like our Bessie; she always goes to the heart of things." "I am very much pleased with him," replied Dr. Lambert; "he is just as unsophisticated in his way as Bessie is in hers. You would have liked to have heard him, Dora. He seems to think there is no one like her. 'She is worth a dozen of me,' he said; and he meant it, too." Richard spent several days at Cliffe, and they were golden days to him and Bessie. On the last evening they went out together, for in the Lamberts' crowded household there was little quiet for the lovers, and Richard had pleaded for one more walk. "I shall not see you for six whole weeks," he said disconsolately; and, as usual, Bessie yielded to his wishes. They climbed up by the quarry into the Coombe Woods, and walked through the long, green alleys that seemed to stretch into space. The Coombe Woods were a favorite trysting-place for young couples, and many a village lad and lass carried on their rustic courtship there. The trees were leafless now, but the February sky was soft and blue, and the birds were twittering of the coming spring. "And Edna is to be married in June," observed Bessie, breaking the silence. "I am glad Mrs. Sefton has given her consent."