Robina thought for a time. It was only a little after seven: she would have time: she ran softly upstairs and swiftly down one of the long corridors until she reached Ralph's room. Very, very softly she unfastened the door, and very gently did she steal in. Without making a scrap of noise, she knelt down by the little white bed and looked with all her heart in her eyes at the boy as he lay asleep. She gazed on this beautiful little face as though she would impress it on her memory for evermore. Then, bending forward, she pressed a kiss, light as air, on the sleeper's forehead, whispered "Good-bye, Ralph; God bless you always," and then she stole away. She had made her entrance into the room and her exit from it without in the least disturbing the little lad who was so happily enjoying himself in Slumberland. But the minute she had left, he began to dream of Robina, and when he awoke some little time afterwards, it was with her name on his lips. He rubbed his brown eyes and looked around him in a puzzled way and said aloud: "I thought darling Robina had been turned into an angel and that she had come to kiss me, and help me to become an angel too." As he uttered the words, there was Harriet in the room; she had come to dress him; although this was an office she need not have taken upon herself; but it was her object to be exceedingly petting to Ralph on this all-important occasion. "What are you muttering to yourself?" she said. "I thought darling Robina was in the room, and that she was turned into an angel," said Ralph. He looked in a puzzled way at Harriet. "Will you ever be turned into an angel, Harriet?" he asked. "I don't know," said Harriet. She spoke crossly. "I have enough to do to keep myself a good girl down in this world, without worrying myself about angels," she continued. "Oh, yes!" said Ralph, in a sad little whisper. "Darling Robina." "Why do you talk of her like that?" said Harriet, rather frightened at his tone. "It is me you love best, isn't it?" "'Course," said Ralph, a little wearily; "only," he added, "I don't see why I am to be saying it every minute. I love Robina too,--_awful_ much!" After this speech, which was uttered with such heart fervour that Harriet must have been a great fool if she did not guess the real state of Ralph's heart, the process of dressing became--to say the least of it--contrary. In the meantime, Robina herself had gone up the avenue to meet Mr Durrant. He was just about to drive down to Sunshine Lodge when he met a pale girl with those remarkably steadfast and beautiful eyes which had always attracted him and which had always won his heart. She was waiting for him at the gates. "Why, Robina!" he said. "I want to speak to you, Mr Durrant, please," said Robina. Mr Durrant immediately motioned to the coachman to stop and sprang out of the carriage. "What is it, dear?" he said. "Is anything wrong? Will you get in and drive down to the house or--what shall we do?"