Gould was not quite so much pre-occupied as Savage had been, so he fell into the lady’s humor, complimented her till she fluttered like a bird of paradise on its nest, and began to think seriously of spurning young Savage from the feet to which he was expected to fall. After awhile Gould adroitly brought the conversation round to the lady’s mother, and expressed an ardent wish to know intimately any person connected with a person he had admired so long. This desire was so promising that Eliza took Gould into the family sitting-room, where Mrs. Halstead sat with her beautiful grandchild. In this fashion Gould introduced himself into the family, where he soon became intimate as a son. It was after this bold step that the roses came back to Georgie’s face; and the young creature began to sing again, like a bird that some great storm has silenced for a time. The old lady smiled on all this, but at times she would fix her eyes, with strange anxiety, on the young man’s face, as if her thoughts were afar off, and troubled with bitter memories. As for Miss Eliza, it was very difficult to sweep an illusion from her brain. Intense vanity like hers is not easily warned. CHAPTER XIX. A DECLARATION OF LOVE. The night that Gould went home with Miss Halstead, Savage presented himself in the tenement-house, resolved to come to an explanation with Anna, and be guided by the result. The boys had gone out on some errand, and old Mrs. Burns had just stepped down stairs to give their landlady notice of the removal; so, for once, Anna was alone. She heard the step on the stairs, and started up like a frightened fawn ready for flight. But there was no place to flee to, except the little bedroom, and that was so close to the room that he might hear her breathe—for she was even then panting with affright. What could she say to him? Had he really thought that Ward was staying there with her consent? He had reached the last flight of steps, when she remembered, with a pang, her promise to Mrs. Savage, “never, if she could help it, to see him again.” Stung by this thought, she sprang for the bedroom; but the doors of that house did not move with patent springs; this one dragged against the floor, and, before she could close it, Savage was in the ante-room. Was she glad or sorry that the possibility of avoiding him had escaped her? The tumult in her heart would have forbidden an answer to this question had her conscience been able to force it upon her. He was in the room, his eyes caught hers as her hand dropped from the door, and she stood on the threshold, gazing wildly at him like an antelope frightened in its lair. “Anna,” he said, yielding to a sudden rush of tenderness which swelled in his heart at the very sight of her; “Anna, was it from me you were striving to escape?” She stood where he had first seen her, with drooping eyes and a cheek of ashes. “Anna, speak to me.”