"Never mind Theodore. Let us talk about more interesting things." "What _can_ be more interesting?" asked May, laughing. "Ourselves." As she remained silent, he went on, "Do you know that we have not had one opportunity for a quiet talk together since I got this engagement?" "Haven't we?" "Ah! you don't remember so accurately as I do. But that was not to be expected. Take my arm." She obeyed as simply as a child. She had been drawing on her gloves when they left Garnet Lodge, but the operation had not been completed, and it chanced that the hand next to Owen was ungloved. She laid her fingers, which gleamed snow-white in the moonlight, on his sleeve. "You think I have done right in taking this employment?" he said. "Quite right." She turned her young face, and looked at him with a sweet fervour of sympathy and approval. Owen raised the white, slender fingers to his lips, and then, replacing them on his arm, laid his own warm, strong hand over them with a gentle pressure. "You know why I did so, don't you, darling?" he said. "Yes, Owen," was the answer, given in a shy whisper, but with innocent frankness. "My own dear love!" he exclaimed, pressing her arm strongly and suddenly to his side. "There is no one like you in the world. Look at me, May. Let me see your sweet, honest eyes." He caught her two hands in both his, and they stood for a moment at arm's length, facing each other, and holding hands like two children. The moonlight shone full on the young girl's fair face, and glittered on the bright tear-drops in her eyes, as she raised them to Owen's. "What can I do to deserve you?" he said. "But why do I talk of desert? You are God's gift, May, and no more to be earned than the blessed sunshine." He put her arm under his once more, and they paced on again without speaking. But to them the silence was full of voices. It was the silence of a dream. They might have wandered Heaven knows whither had not their feet instinctively carried them along the right path, and they found themselves, almost with a start, arrived at the white palings in front of Jessamine Cottage. "We must tell granny, mustn't we?" said May, looking up at Owen, with a delicious sense of implicit reliance on him. "Yes; but I am terribly afraid. I hope she will not be angry." "Angry! How can you think so? Granny is fond of you." "But she is fonder of _you_, and she knows your value, although, thank God, you don't! If you did, what chance should I have had? You know how poor I am--not quite penniless, but very poor." "Not so poor as I, since I am really and truly quite penniless; but I don't mind that, if you don't." Owen felt a desperate temptation to fold her in his arms and beseech her to marry him to-morrow, throwing prudence and pounds sterling to the winds. But the ardour of a genuine passion purifies the nobler soul, as fire purifies the nobler metal, and burns away the dross of self. He answered gravely--