friend of ours."

"How long will it be before I become an old friend?" Amelius asked. "I
mean," he added, with artful emphasis, "an old friend of _yours?"_

Confused by the question, Regina passed it over without notice. "I am
Mrs. Farnaby's adopted daughter," she resumed. "I have been with her
since I was a little girl--and yet she has never told me any of her
secrets. Pray don't suppose that I am tempting you to break faith with
my aunt! I am quite incapable of such conduct as that."

Amelius saw his way to a thoroughly commonplace compliment which
possessed the charm of complete novelty so far as his experience was
concerned. He would actually have told her that she was incapable of
doing anything which was not perfectly becoming to a charming person, if
she had only given him time! She was too eager in the pursuit of her
own object to give him time. "I _should_ like to know," she went on,
"whether my aunt has been influenced in any way by a dream that she had
about you."

Amelius started. "Has she told you of her dream?" he asked, with some
appearance of alarm.

Regina blushed and hesitated, "My room is next to my aunt's," she
explained. "We keep the door between us open. I am often in and out when
she is disturbed in her sleep. She was talking in her sleep, and I
heard your name--nothing more. Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned it?
Perhaps I ought not to expect you to answer me?"

"There is no harm in my answering you," said Amelius. "The dream really
had something to do with her trusting me. You may not think quite so
unfavourably of her conduct now you know that."

"It doesn't matter what I think," Regina replied constrainedly. "If my
aunt's secrets have interested you--what right have I to object? I am
sure I shall say nothing. Though I am not in my aunt's confidence, nor
in your confidence, you will find I can keep a secret."

She folded up her gloves for the twentieth time at least, and gave
Amelius his opportunity of retiring by rising from her chair. He made
a last effort to recover the ground that he had lost, without betraying
Mrs. Farnaby's trust in him.

"I am sure you can keep a secret," he said. "I should like to give you
one of my secrets to keep--only I mustn't take the liberty, I suppose,
just yet?"

She new perfectly well what he wanted to say. Her heart began to quicken
its beat; she was at a loss how to answer. After an awkward silence, she
made an attempt to dismiss him. "Don't l