Mr Brandon was seated in an arm chair by a table, and not very far from a wood fire of a size suited to the season. His slippered feet were on a cushioned stool; his eye-glasses were carefully adjusted on the capacious bridge of his nose; and, intent upon a newspaper which had arrived by that morning's mail, he presented the appearance of a very well satisfied old gentleman, in very comfortable circumstances. But when he turned his head and saw the Widow Keswick close the door behind her, every idea of satisfaction or comfort seemed to vanish from his mind. He dropped the paper; he rose to his feet; he took off his eye-glasses; he turned somewhat red in the face; and he ejaculated: "What! madam! So it is you, Mrs Keswick?" The old lady did not immediately answer. Her head dropped a little on one side, a broad smile bewrinkled the lower part of her well-worn visage, and with her eyes half-closed, behind her heavy spectacles, she held out both her hands, the purple umbrella in one of them, and exclaimed in a voice of happy fervor: "Robert! I am yours!" Mr Brandon, recovered from his first surprise, had made a step forward to go round the table and greet his visitor; but at these words he stopped as if he had been shot. Perception, understanding, and even animation, seemed to have left him as he vacantly stared at the elderly female with purple sun-bonnet and umbrella, blue calico gown, red shawl and coarse boots, who held out her arms towards him, and who gazed upon him with an air of tender, though decrepit, fondness. "Don't you understand me, Robert?" she continued. "Don't you remember the day, many a good long year ago, it is true, when we walked together down there by the branch, and you asked me to be yours? I refused you, Robert, and, although you went down on your knees in the damp grass and besought me to give you my heart, I would not do it. But I did not know you then as I know you now, Robert, and the words of true love which you spoke to me that morning come to me now with a sweetness which I was too young and trifling to notice then. That heart is yours now, Robert. I am yours." And, with these words, she made a step forward. At this demonstration Mr Brandon appeared suddenly to recover his consciousness and he precipitately made two steps backwards, just missing tumbling over his footstool into the fireplace. "Madam!" he exclaimed, "what are you talking about?" "Of the days of our courtship, and your love, Robert," she said. "My love did not come then, but it is here now. Here now," she repeated, putting the hand with the umbrella in it on her breast. "Madam," exclaimed the old gentleman, "you must be raving crazy! Those things to which you allude, happened nearly half a century ago; and since that you have been married and settled, and----"