Then John kissed the little girl, and said, "Go down-stairs to Jane, dear. I have something particular to say to Margery." I was completely taken by surprise. He closed the door upon Mopsie, and came back and reseated himself at the fire. He sat on one side of the fireplace, and I at the other, and the flames danced between us. He shaded his face with his hand, and looked across at me; and I watched intently a great tree falling in the depths of a burning forest among the embers. "Is this true, Margery," said John, "that you are going to leave us, and return to London?" "I am thinking of it," I said pleasantly. "I thought--I had hoped you were happy with us," he said. "Yes," I said, "I have been very happy, but I think I want a little change." How my heart ached with the effort of uttering that untruth! I knew that I wanted no change. "I do not wonder at it," he said after a pause. "We have made a slave of you. You are tired of it, and you are going away." He said this bitterly and sorrowfully, shading his eyes still more with his hand. "No, no," I said, "you must not say that. I never was so happy in my life as I have been here." I spoke more eagerly than I meant to do, and my voice broke a little in spite of me. John left his seat and bent down beside me, so that he could see my face, which could not escape him. "Margery," said he, "I have seen that you have made yourself happy, and I have been sometimes wild enough to hope that you would be content to spend your life amongst us. When you came first I feared to love you too well, but your sweet face and your sweet ways have been too much for me. It may be ungenerous in me to speak, seeing that I only have to offer you a true love, truer maybe than you will meet with in the gay world, a tarnished name, and a very humble home. I have debts to pay, and a soil to wash off my name; but still, Margery, will you be my wife? With your love nothing will be dark or difficult to me." It was very hard. My heart was brimming over with a joyous reply to this appeal; but Mrs. Hollingford's uneasy face was vividly before my eyes all the time, and I could only say distressedly, "It cannot be, John. It cannot, cannot be." "Why?" he asked, almost sternly, and he rose up and stood above me. "Tell me that you cannot love me--tell me you would rather save yourself for more honour, more prosperity, and I will never trouble you again. Were I differently circumstanced I might plead, but I could not live to see you discontented, ashamed. Why can it not be, Margery?" I clasped my hands in my lap, and tried to speak firmly. "For a reason that I cannot give to you, John. Let us be good friends." "Friends!" he echoed bitterly. "Well! I was wrong to think of my own happiness before your worldly advantage. Good-bye, Margery. I am going to London in the morning. Perhaps you may be gone before I come back."