"I'm sure of that, too, Mary!" and a smile that was almost youthful in its tenderness brightened his worn features--"I've never been so well taken care of in all my life before! Mr. Reay thinks I am a very lucky old fellow." "Mr. Reay!" She echoed the name--and then, stooping abruptly towards the fire, began to make it up afresh. Helmsley watched her intently. "Don't you like Mr. Reay?" he asked. She turned a smiling face round upon him. "Why, of course I like him!" she answered--"I think everyone in Weircombe likes him." "I wonder if he'll ever marry?" pursued Helmsley, with a meditative air. "Ah, I wonder! I hope if he does, he'll find some dear sweet little girl who will really love him and be proud of him! For he's going to be a great man, David!--a great and famous man some day!" "You think so?" "I'm sure of it!" And she lifted her head proudly, while her blue eyes shone with enthusiastic fervour. Helmsley made a mental note of her expression, and wondered how he could proceed. "And you'd like him to marry some 'dear sweet little girl'"--he went on, reflectively--"I'll tell him that you said so!" She was silent, carefully piling one or two small logs on the fire. "Dear sweet little girls are generally uncommonly vain of themselves," resumed Helmsley--"And in the strength of their dearness and sweetness they sometimes fail to appreciate love when they get it. Now Mr. Reay would love very deeply, I should imagine--and I don't think he could bear to be played with or slighted." "But who would play with or slight such love as his?" asked Mary, with a warm flush on her face--"No woman that knew anything of his heart would wilfully throw it away!" Helmsley stroked his beard thoughtfully. "That story of his about a girl named Lucy Sorrel,"--he began. "Oh, she was wicked--downright wicked!" declared Mary, with some passion--"Any girl who would plan and scheme to marry an old man for his money must be a worthless creature. I wish I had been in that Lucy Sorrel's place!" "Ah! And what would you have done?" enquired Helmsley. "Well, if I had been a pretty girl, in my teens, and I had been fortunate enough to win the heart of a splendid fellow like Angus Reay,"--said Mary, "I would have thanked God, as Shakespeare tells us to do, for a good man's love! And I would have waited for him years, if he had wished me to! I would have helped him all I could, and cheered him and encouraged him in every way I could think of--and when he had won his fame, I should have been prouder than a queen! Yes, I should!--I think any girl would have been lucky indeed to get such a man to care for her as Angus Reay!" Thus spake Mary, with sparkling eyes and heaving bosom--and Helmsley heard her, showing no sign of any especial interest, the while he went on meditatively stroking his beard. "It is a pity,"--he said, after a discreet pause--"that you are not a few years younger, Mary! You might have loved him yourself."