‘I’m so sorry the old house has gone. I should have liked to have seen the little octagon room again, where you used to sit and work, Aunt Olive. I slept in the room over it, I know, and liked it so much because it had the evening and morning sun, both. Do you remember the big griffin I drew on the wall to frighten Maud? And how frightened I was myself because it wouldn’t rub out, and always seemed grinning at me in the dark? You papered the room with rosebuds yourself, then, you dear old auntie, to save me from a scolding from papa.’ There was certainly no mistaking the real Phil when once he had come. He was full of reminiscences of former places and old friends. Tor had done well with what slight knowledge he possessed of Phil’s childhood; but the real Phil could go on by the hour with boyish recollections of Ladywell and home. Maud escaped to the garden when the breakfast-party rose. Just at present she could not talk freely to the newly-found brother; she was too much startled and perplexed by the suddenness of the change. It had been a habit from the first, that she and Tor should stroll round the garden together before the day’s work began; and from what he had said, she fancied that he intended still to keep up this habit. How would he treat her now? how would he behave? He had always been so quiet and reserved in his affection, she so open and familiar. She felt glad now that he had acted thus, for she saw that he had taken no undue advantage of his position, and respected him the more for it; but she did wish (and her cheek crimsoned at the thought) that she had herself been a little more reserved in the affection she had expressed for himself. ‘But it wasn’t my fault,’ she said to herself, half aloud; ‘for I thought he was my brother, and I did love him ever so much.’ ‘Don’t put it into the past tense, Maud,’ said a voice behind her; and she found that her hands were held fast by Tor. ‘Is a brother the only person in the world you can love?’ Maud’s eyes fell before his, but she did not try to withdraw her hands. ‘Have you transferred _all_ the love you had for me to the real Phil?’ he asked again. ‘I suppose I ought,’ answered Maud, beginning to smile. ‘I suppose in time I shall; but, you know, you have told me that transfers are tedious and tiresome affairs.’ ‘So they are, Maud,’ he answered—‘much too tedious and tiresome to be worth the undertaking in some cases. Look here—let me help you out of a difficulty. Give Phil as much love as ever you like—new love for the new Phil, and let me keep the old love that I have won. It was not _all_ given to me, was it, Maud, because I was thought to be a brother?’ He drew her towards him, and she did not resist, not even when her head was touching his shoulder. ‘You love me, Maud?’