“Quite welcome,” said Lemuel dryly, pushing on towards the basement stairs. “Oh! And Lemuel! will you let Jane give you your supper in the dining-room, so that you could be here if I heard anything else?” “I don't want any supper,” said Lemuel. The girl scrutinised him with an expression of misgiving. Then, with a little sigh, as of one who will not explore a painful mystery, she asked: “Would you mind sitting in the dining-room, then, till aunty gets back?” “I'd just as lives sit there,” said Lemuel, walking into the dark dining-room and sitting down. “Oh, thank you very much. Aunty will be back very soon, I suppose. She's just gone to the Sewells' to tea.” She followed him to the threshold. “You must--I must--light the gas in here for you.” “Guess I can light the gas,” said Lemuel, getting up to intercept her in this service. She had run into the reception-room for a match, and she would not suffer him to prevent her. “No, no! I insist! And Lemuel,” she said, turning upon him, “I must ask you to excuse my speaking harshly to you. I was--agitated.” “Perfectly excusable,” said Lemuel. “I am afraid,” said the girl, fixing him with her eyes, “that you are not well.” “Oh yes, I'm well. I'm--pretty tired; that's all.” “Have you been walking far?” “Yes--not very.” “The walking ought to do you good,” said Sibyl, with serious thoughtfulness. “I think,” she continued, “you had better have some bryonia. Don't you think you had?” “No, no! I don't want anything,” protested Lemuel. She looked at him with a feeling of baffled anxiety painted on her face; and as she turned away, she beamed with a fresh inspiration. “I will get you a book.” She flew into the reception-room and back again, but she only had the book that she had herself been reading. “Perhaps you would like to read this? I've finished it. I was just looking back through it.” “Thank you; I guess I don't want to read any, just now.” She leaned against the side of the dining-table, beyond which Lemuel sat, and searched his fallen countenance with a glance contrived to be at once piercing and reproachful. “I see,” she said, “you have not forgiven me.” “Forgiven you?” repeated Lemuel blankly. “Yes--for giving way to my agitation in speaking to you.” “I don't know,” said Lemuel, with a sigh of deep inward trouble, “as I noticed anything.” “I told you to light the gas in the basement,” suggested Sibyl, “and then I told you to light it up here, and then--I scolded you.” “Oh yes,” admitted Lemuel: “that.” He dropped his head again. Sibyl sank upon the edge of a chair. “Lemuel! you have something on your mind?” The boy looked up with a startled face. “Yes! I can see that you have,” pursued Sibyl. “What have you been doing?” she demanded sternly. Lemuel was so full of the truth that it came first to his lips in all cases. He could scarcely force it aside now with the evasion that availed him nothing. “I don't know as I've been doing anything in particular.”