‘He has been in Yorkshire, you know, on his friend’s business, and only came back the night before last. Then, to-day came another letter, which sent him tearing off again. I’m afraid his friend is a sad plague to him just now—though, of course, he owes ever so much to him.’ ‘A good friend—a good brother,’ said Michael Meredith, with his slow satisfied smile. ‘Such a man will make a good husband, too—eh, Maud?’ ‘Do you mean Phil, Uncle Michael? Oh yes; I should think he would make the best husband in the world. He is so good and kind and considerate to everyone. But I don’t much fancy he means to get married—not yet, at any rate.’ ‘Ah, Maud, sisters are not always their brothers’ confidantes on such subjects.’ Maud looked rather nettled. ‘I’m sure Phil would tell me directly; he tells me everything about himself.’ ‘He is a wonderful brother, then,’ said Meredith; but his own face had clouded over somewhat, and by-and-by he asked, with a touch of sharpness in his tone: ‘Has he never spoken to you, then, of his engagement?’ ‘His engagement?’ ‘Yes; are you so much astonished? Did you not know that he was half-engaged?’ Maud calmed down a little after her first amazement. She knew that the blind man was given to romancing, but she could not yet understand the bearing of such a remark as this. ‘No, Mr. Meredith. I don’t know anything about it. To whom is he half-engaged?’ ‘To Roma.’ This was said with an air of such pride and satisfaction that Maud nearly smiled. She wondered if it could be true. Phil had been to see the blind man and his daughter a great deal, and had of late seemed more interested in Roma; but certainly Maud had seen no traces of anything like a romantic attachment. ‘Phil engaged to Roma!’ she repeated. ‘He never said a word to me!’ ‘Well,’ returned Meredith slowly, half-ready to retract what he had said, now that he had produced the desired effect, ‘perhaps I should hardly say “engaged,” because there has been no pledge asked or given on either side, as yet. I do not wish the quiet current of Roma’s young life disturbed, and your brother can afford to wait. But words have passed between him and me; I have read his inmost heart, and have found it loyal and true—as his father’s was before him; and now we understand one another, and he is prepared to abide by my wishes as to the time of probation.’ For by this time Michael Meredith had fully persuaded himself that the delay was of his own making, that the young man was eager and willing to come forward to claim Roma’s hand, but that he withheld him, in order that his daughter’s young heart should not be too early or too roughly awakened from its sleep of happy childhood. This Meredith fully believed, and Maud half-believed it too. It was a good thing for Tor that Mr. Meredith had so deceived himself, as it had saved him from any further allusions to a subject not at all agreeable to him. Maud pondered awhile over these words, and finally said: