Tears had started to Stella’s eyes as Lord Carthew finished reciting the verses. “Sir Lancelot never guessed that she loved him, then?” she asked. “Not in that poem. But you are taking it quite seriously, Miss Cranstoun. I shall be angry with myself if I have saddened you.” “You will think me very silly,” she said, “but I never get a chance of reading poetry, or of listening to stories told. And you repeat poetry so well, and tell tales in such an interesting manner, I could listen for weeks at a stretch.” His heart leaped up with delight at her words; but when he spoke again, after a slight pause, he had perfect control of his voice. “Do you know,” he said, “that during the last half hour I have been thinking a great deal of what you were telling me a little while ago about your dread of the consequences of going to London. You have been amiable enough to treat me as your friend, and in that character I have been trying to discover some way out of your difficulties. You are tired of living here, and find the life intolerably dull, do you not? You long to see the world with your own eyes, to travel, to go out and come in as you like, to be no longer repressed and restrained, and blamed when you do not deserve it? You would like to visit strange countries, to sail in ships to foreign places, to see something of gayety and brightness in the great cities of the world?” “Yes; oh, yes!” Her gypsy blood had mantled in her cheeks, her breath came quickly, and her eyes sparkled with excitement at the pictures his words conjured up before her. “And you also long, I am sure, sometimes, when you are alone in that great dreary house,” he went on, softly, “for love and affection, for a tenderness that shall wrap you round, and guard you from all worry and trouble, for the arms of some one who would love you above everything else in the world clasped round you; for the loving companionship of some one who would think of you always, understand you in everything, and answer your mind with his, for love that is friendship, and friendship that is love; the love that will grow gray beside you, and find you dearer and more beautiful when your youth is past than even you are now.” She faltered, blushed, and looked at him quickly. “I have mamma----” she was beginning, when he stopped her by laying his hand lightly upon her own, which held the reins on her horse’s neck.