"What does he mean by life?" Cicely said to herself, as, trembling and amazed, she went back into her bare little parlour, which always looked doubly bare after Mab had gone. Annie had heard her coming, and had lighted the two candles on the table; but though it was still cold, there was no fire in the cheerless little fireplace. The dark walls, which a large cheerful lamp could scarcely have lit, small as the room was, stood like night round her little table, with those two small sparks of light. A glass of milk and a piece of bread stood ready on a little tray, and Annie had been waiting with some impatience her young mistress's return in order to get to bed. The little boys were asleep long ago, and there was not a sound in the tiny house as Cicely sat down to think, except the sound of Annie overhead, which did not last long. Life! Was this life, or was he making a bad joke at her expense? What did he mean? It would be impossible to deny that Cicely's heart beat faster and faster as it became clearer and clearer to her what he did mean; but to talk of life! Was this life--this mean, still, solitary place, which nobody shared, which neither love nor fellowship brightened? for even the children, though she devoted her life to them, made no warm response to Cicely's devotion. She sat till far into the night thinking, wondering, musing, dreaming, her heart beating, her head buzzing with the multitude of questions that crowded upon her. Life! It was he who was holding open to her the gates of life; the only life she knew, but more attractive than she had ever known it. Cicely was as much bewildered by the manner of his appeal as by its object. Could he--love her? Was that the plain English of it? Or was there any other motive that could make him desirous of taking her burden upon his shoulders? Could she, if a man did love her, suffer him to take such a weight on his shoulders? And then--she did not love him. Cicely said this to herself faltering. "No, she had never thought of loving him. She had felt that he understood her. She had felt that he was kind when many had not been kind. There had been between them rapid communications of sentiment, impulses flashing from heart to heart, which so often accompany very close relations. But all that is not being in love," Cicely said to herself. Nothing could have taken her more utterly by surprise; but the surprise had been given, the shock received. Its first overpowering sensation was over, and now she had to look forward to the serious moment when this most serious thing must be settled, and her reply given.