"Well, you know how excitement affects your heart, so I shall not tell you if you will not try to be calm." "And now, of course, I can be indifferent, can I, even if you should say no more? Oh, Chester, what is it? The suspense is a thousand times harder than the truth. What have you got to tell me? What passed between you and papa last evening? Is it--have you ceased to love me?" "No, no, Lucy, not that. I love you as much as ever, more than ever for something has been added to my first love--that of a love for a sister." "Yes, Chester I know. When I was baptized--" "No; you don't know. I don't mean that." "What _do_ you mean?" Oh, it was so hard to go on. One truth must lead to another. If he told her he was her brother in the flesh as well as in the spirit, she would want to know how, why; and the explanation would involve her father. He had not thought of that quite so plainly. But he could not now stop. He must go on. He felt about for a way by which to approach the revelation gradually. "You have never had a brother, have you?" he asked. "No." "Would you like to have one?" "I've always wanted a brother." "How would I do for one?" She looked at him curiously, then the sober face relaxed and she smiled. "Oh, you'd make a fine one." "You wouldn't object." "I should think not." "But, now, what would you think if I _was_ your real brother, if my name was Chester Strong?" "I'd think you were just joking a little." "But I'm not joking, Lucy; I am in earnest. Take a good look at me, here at this profile. Do I look like your father?" She looked closely. "I believe you do," she said, still without a guess at the truth. "Your forehead slopes just like his, and your nose has the same bump on it. I never noticed that before." "What might that mean, Lucy?" "What might what mean?" "That I look like your father." He had turned his face to her now, but she still gazed at him, as if the truth was just struggling for recognition. The smile vanished for an instant from her face, and then returned. She would not entertain the advance messenger. "I don't object to your looking like my papa, for he's a mighty fine looking man." "Lucy, you saw what your father and I were doing last night?" "Yes." "What did you think--what do you now think of us?" "Again, Chester, I don't object to you and father spooning a bit. In fact, I think that's rather nice." Chester laughed a little now, which loosened the tension considerably; but he returned to the attack: "Lucy, what would you think if your father had a son who had been lost when a baby, and that now he should return to him as a grown man?" "Well, I would think that would be jolly, as the English say." "And that his son's name was Chester Lawrence?" he continued as if there had been no interruption. Now the cog in Lucy's mental make-up caught firmly into the machinery that had been buzzing about her for some time. "Are you my brother?" she asked. "Yes; I am your brother."