Rob had forgotten the rain. Notwithstanding that his mother had brought forth that very argument, bidding him “Go away with you; they would be glad to see you the day, if they never let you in again;” yet in the pleasure of being so received he had forgotten the very chiefest cause of his welcome. The brightened looks, the eager greeting, were too pleasant, too flattering, to be taken unmoved. It was not possible to believe that it was not for himself; and all these things had worked upon Rob to an extent he was scarcely aware of. He who had at first approached the young lady so respectfully, and with so little ulterior motive, and who had been half shocked, half amused at his mother’s treatment of the renewed acquaintance between them, came almost with a bound to his mother’s conclusion when he saw the brightness of Margaret’s eyes this particular rainy morning. There could be no doubt that she was glad to see him; he was here by her own invitation. She was eager to associate him with herself in the interests of the old house, and anxious to accept the lessons he offered, and to “put herself under an obligation” to him in this way. Margaret, entirely unacquainted with money and the value of things, never thought of any “obligation;” but he did, who was accustomed to consider the price of lessons, and to whom money’s-worth would never be without importance. He was very willing, very anxious to confer this favor; but he could not help attaching a certain significance to her acceptance of it, a significance entirely unjustified by any idea in Margaret’s innocent mind. She was willing to accept the obligation; therefore, was it not at least permissible to think that some other way of clearing it, making up to him for his kindness, was in her mind? If she had any dawning thought of bestowing all she had upon him, of giving him herself and her money, her heiressship altogether, that would indeed be a very good reason for laying herself “under an obligation” to him. Thus Rob had come to think with a beating heart that there was meaning in the innocent girl’s happy reception of him, in her eagerness to introduce him to her father, and warm desire that he should please him. And thus the moment was very serious to him, like nothing he had experienced before.