“Quite sure,” he was saying. “But you must think of me all the time, Lily; you must think of nothing but me--promise me that, and I shall not be afraid.” “I promise!” cried Lilias, clasping her hands. Mary stood and listened altogether confounded, and Nello, from above, bewildered and only half satisfied, looked on. Who was the young man? It seemed to Miss Musgrave that she had seen him before. And what was it that had changed Lilias into this little princess, this small heroine? The heroic aspect, however, gave way before Mary could interfere, and the child murmured something softer, something less unlike the little girl with all whose ways Mary was familiar. “But I always think of you,” she said; “always! since _that_ day.” “Do you, indeed, my little Lily? That makes me happy. You must always keep up so good a custom.” And the young man smiled, with eyes full of tenderness, and took the child’s hand and held it in his own. Lilias was too young for any comment or false interpretation, but what did it mean? The spectator behind, besides, was too much astonished to move. “Good-bye, my Lily; good-bye, Nello,” cried the young man, nodding his head to the children. And then he put on his hat and rode round the corner towards the door. Lilias stood looking after him, like a little saint in an ecstasy. She clasped her hands again, and looked up to the sky, her lips moving, and tears glittering in her eyes. “Oh, Nello, don’t you think God will help him?” she said, one tear overbrimming suddenly, and rolling down her cheek. She started when Mary, with tones a little sharpened by consternation, called her. Lilias had no sense of shame in her innocent mind, but as there is no telling in what light those curious beings called grown-up people might regard a child’s actions, a little thrill of alarm went through her. What might Mary say? What would she think when she knew that Mr. Geoff “had come to set everything right about papa”? Lilias felt instinctively that Geoff’s mission would not appear in exactly the same light to Mary as it did to herself. She turned round with a sudden flush of surprise and agitation on her face. It looked like the blush of a maturer sentiment to Mary. “At twelve years old!” she said to herself! And unconsciously there glanced through her mind a recollection of the first Lily--the child’s mother--she who had been the beginning of all the trouble. Was it in the blood? “Who is that gentleman?” Mary asked, with much disturbance of mind. “Lilias! I could not have expected this of you.” Lilias followed into the hall, very still and pale, feeling herself a culprit, though she did not know why. Her hands dropped straight by her side, after the manner of a creature accused; and she looked up to Mary with eyes full of vague alarm, into which the tears were ready to come at a moment’s notice. “I have not done anything wrong?” she said, turning her assertion into a faltering question. “It was Mr. Geoff.”