"Oh, nonsense! you were groaning for want of it just now. It is my own, to do as I like with; and I shall have a lot more, some day, unless mother disinherits me." "Which reminds me that I have to face her," said Paul, rather ruefully. "I think you had better go at once," said May, with merry decision, "and leave mother to me. I don't pretend she will like it; but she may consent, as she has been grievously worried by the fear that I was going to be an old maid--and so I should have been but for you." Paul tried to repossess himself of her hands, but May had glided back to the drawing-room, turning as she left to tell him to call again in the morning. Left to himself, Paul tried to collect his thoughts, and to realize the intense happiness that had come to him. If it were true that May loved him, he would marry her in the face of all opposition, for she knew well enough that he did not care for her money, but for herself. Then he fell again to wondering whether she had sufficiently counted the cost of uniting her life with his, for, in marrying, Paul felt it would be impossible for him to change the whole scheme of his life. His objects and ambitions would be the same after it as before, and, unless May was prepared to share them, they would gradually drift apart. He must put it all before her to-morrow, lest she should make a lifelong mistake. But May had made no mistake; she knew her own mind, at last, for absence from Paul had taught it her. She had turned with absolute loathing from the mill-round of gaiety which was the only marked characteristic of her life in London; and her thoughts had recurred persistently to Rudham, until finally, in the time of distress, she had followed the dictates of her heart and gone down there. But not until the day of Kitty's funeral, when she stood beside Paul at her grave, had she owned to herself that he was the man she loved: a conviction which deepened into certainty in the weeks which followed, for, although she saw little of him, to be in the place where he lived, and in some way to share his work, made her happy, and gave her a sense of repose which had not been hers since she left. Mrs. Webster shed some very bitter tears when, after dinner that evening, May announced her engagement. "It is wicked of him to have asked you! he is as poor as a church mouse!" "I can't remember, exactly, but I don't think he did ask me," said May, knitting her pretty brows. "He did once before, but I don't think he did to-day. But he was so very miserable that----" "Well!" interposed Mrs. Webster, "in my young days girls left it to the men to speak." "Oh, mother, don't scold! I am so happy--happier that I have ever been before. You know you have wished me to marry; let me marry the man I love." "It is such an ill-assorted match; he has no money----" "And I have plenty," said May. "And how can I ever consent to your living in a cottage?" went on Mrs. Webster, with a wail of despair.