gs--"

"Clover," catching her hand, "how can you torment me so? Is it necessary
that I should tell you that I love you with every bit of heart that is in
me, and need you and want you and long for you, but have never dared to
hope that you could want me? Loveliest, sweetest, I do, and I always
shall, whether it is yes or no."

"Then, Geoff--if you feel like that--if you're quite sure you feel like
that, I think--"

"What do you think, dearest?"

"I think--that I could be very happy even in winter--in the High Valley."

And papa and the children, and the lonely and far-away feelings? There was
never a mention of them in this frank acceptance. Oh, Clover, Clover,
circumstances _do_ alter cases!

Mrs. Hope's rubber of whist seemed a long one, for Phil did not get home
till a quarter before eleven, by which time the two by the fire had
settled the whole progress of their future lives, while the last logs of
the pinon wood crackled, smouldered, and at length broke apart into
flaming brands. In imagination the little ranch house had thrown out as
many wings and as easily as a newly-hatched dragon-fly, had been
beautified and made convenient in all sorts of ways,--a flower-garden had
sprouted round its base, plenty of room had been made for papa and the
children and Katy and Ned, who were to come out continually for visits in
the long lovely summers; they themselves also were to go to and fro,--to
Burnet, and still farther afield, over seas to the old Devonshire grange
which Geoff remembered so fondly.

"How my mother and Isabel will delight in you," he said; "and the squire!
You are precisely the girl to take his fancy. We'll go over and see them
as soon as we can, won't we, Clover?"

Clover listened delightedly to all these schemes, but through them all,
like that young Irish lady who went over the marriage service with her
lover adding at the end of every clause, "Provided my father gives his
consent," she interposed a little running thread of protest,--"If papa is
willing. You know, Geoff, I can't really promise anything till I've talked
with papa."

It was settled that until Dr. Carr had been consulted, the affair was not
to be called an engagement, or spoken of to any one; only Clover asked
Geoff to tell Clarence all about it at once.

The thought of Clarence was, in truth, the one cloud in her happiness just
then. It was impossible to calculate how he would take the news. If it
made him angry or very unhappy