own pleasure. He might
have been flattered and pleased by Miss Kepp's agitation; but he was
ill and peevish; and having all his life been subject to a profound
antipathy to feminine tearfulness, the girl's display of emotion
annoyed him.

"Is it to be yes, or no, my dear?" he asked, with, some vexation in his
tone.

Mary Anne looked up at him with tearful, frightened eyes.

"O, yes, sir, if I can be of any use to you, and nurse you when you are
ill, and work for you till I work my fingers to the bone."

She clenched her hands spasmodically as she spoke. In imagination she
was already toiling and striving for the god of her idolatry--the
GENTLEMAN whose varnished boots had been to her as a glimpse of another
and a fairer world than that represented by Tulliver's-terrace, Old
Kent-road. But Captain Paget checked her enthusiasm by a gentle gesture
of his attenuated hands.

"That will do, my dear," he murmured languidly; "I'm not very strong
yet, and anything in the way of fuss is inexpressibly painful to me.
Ah, my poor child," he exclaimed, pityingly, "if you could have seen a
dinner at the Marquis of Hertford's, you would have understood how much
can be achieved without fuss. But I am talking of things you don't
understand. You will be my wife; and a very good, kind, obedient little
wife, I have no doubt. That is all settled. As for working for me, my
love, it would be about as much as these poor little hands could do to
earn me a cigar a day--and I seldom smoke less than half a dozen
cigars; so, you see, that is all so much affectionate nonsense. And now
you may wake your mother, my dear; for I want to take a little nap, and
I can't close my eyes while that good soul is snoring so intolerably;
but not a word about our little arrangement, Mary Anne, till you and
your mother are alone."

And hereupon the Captain spread a handkerchief over his face and
subsided into a gentle slumber. The little scene had fatigued him;
though it had been so quietly enacted, that Mrs. Kepp had slept on
undisturbed by the brief fragment of domestic drama performed within a
few yards of her uneasy arm-chair. Her daughter awoke her presently,
and she resumed her needlework, while Mary Anne made some tea for the
beloved sleeper. The cups and saucers made more noise to-night than
they were wont to make in the girl's careful hands. The fluttering of
her heart seemed to communicate itself to the tips of her fingers, and
the jingling of the