This brought an overpowering flush of colour over her comely, matronly face; but the next moment she cried out with agitation, “Oh, no, no! How could you think so of me?--not for the world, not for the world! If every penny we had depended on it”--and here she stopped short, confused, and looked at him again. “I will not meddle with your pennies, Mary, whatever you may mean by that. I have plenty. You need not fear for me. Ah!--Uncle Abraham, I suppose, is dead?--he must be dead long ago: and there is something---- The old people are all dead, I suppose?” “It is not that,” she said, faltering, which was no answer to his question; but he understood it well enough. He looked at her with increased seriousness, and she shrank before his eye. “Yes: they are all dead----” “Uncle Abraham and all----” He looked at her more and more keenly, with a slight smile on his face. “But he did not take his money with him, I suppose, as he used to threaten to do?” To this the lady made no reply; and there was a pause, he standing somewhat sternly, with his eyes fixed upon her; she with her head drooping a little, drawn back a few steps, not looking at him. The door behind her was open, and after a minute, a voice called from it, “Mary, to whom are you talking?” The stranger started visibly. He said, with a sudden catch in his voice, “Anna! Is she here?” “Oh yes, Leonard, yes,” said the lady. “She is here--so changed! so changed! I think it is because she has been unhappy.” “Unhappy!” he said softly. His tone had changed and softened; only to hear it the listener might be certain that there were tears in his eyes. “Unhappy! after thirty years.” The man was touched and flattered and compunctious all in one. There was no difficulty in interpreting the inflections in his voice. It was full of tenderness, of a mournful pleasure, and surprise as well--“while I have been making myself so comfortable,” he added in an undertone. “Oh, not in that way,” the lady said, but in a whisper. “No, no,” shaking her head, “not in that way.” His mood of tender complaisance was perhaps a little subdued by this, but only a little. “If you think she would let me see her,” he said-- At this moment she was called again--“Mary! there is a perfect gale blowing in at the door. Who have you there?” The lady who was called Mary advanced to him confidentially. “She heard your name just as well as I did,” she said, “but she pretends to take no notice; wait here till I go and speak to her. Oh, she is so changed!” He caught her by the hand and detained her. “Nothing has happened? She must be old like all of us, I know----”