“At last,” said Ronald, coming upstairs with his light-springing foot three steps at a time, “at last, Lily, I have settled with Dougal, and I am starting to-morrow morning: at eight, he says, but nine will do. And this for a little while, my darling, will be my last night in the nest.” The room had undergone a wonderful change since it had first been Lily’s bower. It had changed much while she was there alone, but the change was much greater within the last week than all that had happened before. It had become a home: there were two chairs by the fire, there was an indefinable consciousness in every thing of two minds, two people, the union and conjunction which make society. It was all warm, social, breathing of life, no suggestion in it of loneliness or longing, or unsatisfied thought, or the solitude which breathes a chill through every comfort. Lily, sitting alone, had been, it was very clear, left but for a moment. This sentiment cannot, indeed, expand stone walls, yet the once dull and chilly drawing-room, with its deep small windows, seemed to possess a widened circle, a fuller atmosphere. Into this already had there pushed a care or two, the reflection of the diversities of two minds as well as their union? If so, it only helped to widen the sphere still further, to make it more representative of the world. Lily looked up from the book she had taken up in her husband’s absence with a change of countenance and sudden exclamation. “_You_ are going to-morrow? Not _we_?” she cried. “My bonnie Lily, you were always reasonable--how could it be _we_? I’m thankful, though, that you meant it to be we, for it was not a happy thought that my own lassie, my wife of a week old, was pushing me away, back with the first loosening of the frosts, into the world.” “You never thought that, you never could have thought that!” cried Lily, divided between indignation and a tumult of new feeling that rose in her. And then she covered her face with her hands. “Are you going to leave me here, Ronald, my lane, my lane?” she cried, with a tone of anguish in her voice. He was behind her, drawing her head upon his shoulder, soothing her in every way he knew. “Oh, Lily, my darling, don’t say I have beguiled you! What could it be else, what could it be? I might have held out by myself and kept away. I might have sworn I would never go near you, for your sweet sake. Would you rather I had done that, Lily? Is it not better to belong to each other, my darling, at any cost, so as to be ready in a moment to take advantage of a bright day when it comes?” “Of a bright day when it comes?” she said, suddenly taking her hands from her face. A chill as if of the ice outside came upon Lily. She was as white as the snow, and cold, and trembled. “Is that all--is that all that is between you and me, Ronald?” she cried.