“An explanation?” I looked at him over my blue print, wondering what it could be; but it did not seem worth while to stop working, and I threaded my needle and made a knot on my thread while I waited for what he was going to say. Then suddenly my heart began to beat a little fast, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps my dreams were about to become true, and that he knew all about it as well as I, and was just going to tell me I was Lady Mary, and he Earl of ----. I had never been able to choose a satisfactory title, and I could not invent one on the spur of the moment; but instinctively I gave a glance from the window to see whether the beautiful carriage was in sight, coming to take us to our splendid home. “Perhaps I ought to have taken you into my confidence before,” he said, “for you have been brought up a lonely girl, and ought to feel for people who are lonely. I have been very lonely myself, very desolate, ever since your poor mother died.” Here my heart gave a slight stir, and I felt angry, without knowing exactly why. Lonely? Why, he had always had me! “When you are older,” he went on nervously, “you will feel what a dreadful thing the want of companionship is. You have been a good child, Mary, and done all you could for me. I should not have been able to live without you; but when a man has been used to a companion of--of his own standing, it is a great change to him to fall back upon a child.” I grew angrier and angrier; I could scarcely tell why. A feeling of disappointment, of heart-sinking, of fury, came over me. I had never made much fuss about adoring my father, and so forth; but to find out all at once that he had never been satisfied--never happy---- “Do you mean me?” I said, quite hoarsely, feeling as if he had wronged me, deceived me, done everything that was cruel--but with no clear notion of what was coming even now. “Whom else could I mean?” he said, quite gently. “You are a dear, good child, but you are only a child.” Oh, how my heart swelled, till I thought it would burst! but I could not say anything. I began to tap my foot on the floor in my anger and mortification, but still I was so stupid I thought of nothing more. “Don’t look as if you thought I blamed you, Mary,” said my father; “on the contrary, you have been a dear little housekeeper. But--do you remember, dear,” he went on, with his voice shaking a little, “that I told you once of a young lady who lived with the Spicers?” It began to dawn upon me now. I turned round upon him, and stared at him. Oh, how pleased I was to see his eyes shrink, and the embarrassed look upon his face! I would not give him any quarter; I felt my own face growing crimson with shame, but I kept looking at him, compelling him to keep opposite to me, preventing him from hiding that blush. Oh, good heavens--an _old_ man--a man of forty-five--a clergyman--my father! and there he sat, blushing like some ridiculous boy.