re you" (speaking
with great earnestness) "that I had as much idea of marrying you as of
marrying _father_!"

Looking back with mature reflection at this speech, I think that it may
be safely reckoned among my unlucky things.

"No," he says, wincing a little, a very little. "I know you had not;
but--you have not answered my question."

For a moment I look down irresolute, then, through some fixed belief in
him, I look up and tell him the plain, bare truth.

"I _did_ think that it would be a nice thing for the boys," I say, "and
so it will, there is no doubt; you will be as good as a fa--, as a
brother to them; but--I like you _myself_ besides, you may believe it or
not as you please, but it is quite, _quite_, QUITE true."

As I speak, the tears steal into my eyes.

"And _I_ like _you_!" he answers very simply, and so saying, stoops, and
with a sort of diffidence, kisses me.

* * * * *

"Well, how did it go off?" cries Bobby, curiously, when I next rejoin my
compeers. "Did you laugh?"

"_Laugh!_" I echo, with lofty anger, "I do not know what you mean! I
never felt in the least inclined." Then seeing my brethren look rather
aghast at this sudden change in the wind, I add gayly: "Bobby, you must
never again breathe a word about Sir Roger's having been at school with
father; let it be supposed that he did without education."

CHAPTER VIII.

This is my wooing: thus I am disposed of. Without a shadow of previous
flirtation with any man born of woman--without any of the ups and downs,
the ins and outs of an ordinary love-affair, I place my fate in Sir
Roger's hands. Henceforth I must have done with all girlish
speculations, as to the manner of man who is to drop from the clouds to
be my wooer. Well, I have not many day-dreams to relinquish. When I have
built Spanish castles--in a large family, one has not time for many--a
lover for myself has been less the theme of my aspirations than a
benefactor for the family. One, who will exercise a wholesomely
repressive influence over father, has been more than any thing the theme
of my longings; on the unlikely hypothesis of my marrying at all. For, O
friends, it has seemed to me _most_ unlikely; I dare say that I might
not have been over-difficult--might have thankfully and heartily loved
some one not quite a Bayard, but one cannot love _any thing_--any odd
and end--and, say what you will, the choice of a country girl, with a
little