coloured arm. "It must be
very painful," he had said, looking into her face, as though by
doing so he could swear that he would so willingly bear all the pain
himself, if it were only possible to make such an exchange.

"Not very," she had answered, smiling. "It is only a little stiff. I
can't quite move it easily."

And then she lifted it up, and afterwards dropped it with a little
look of pain that ran through his heart.

The next five minutes were taken up in discussing the case of the
recusant boiler, and then Clara discovered that she had better go and
fetch her mother. But against the immediate taking of this step he
had alleged some valid reason, and so they had gone on, till the dark
night admonished him that he could do no more than save the dinner
hour at Castle Richmond.

The room was nearly dark when he left her, and she got up and stood
at the front window, so that, unseen, she might see his figure as he
rode off from the house. He mounted his horse within the quadrangle,
and coming out at the great old-fashioned ugly portal, galloped off
across the green park with a loose rein and a happy heart. What is it
the song says?

"Oh, ladies, beware of a gay young knight
Who loves and who rides away."

There was at Clara's heart, as she stood there at the window, some
feeling of the expediency of being beware, some shadow of doubt as
to the wisdom of what she had done. He rode away gaily, with a happy
spirit, for he had won that on the winning of which he had been
intent. No necessity for caution presented itself to him. He had seen
and loved; had then asked, and had not asked in vain.

She stood gazing after him, as long as her straining eye could catch
any outline of his figure as it disappeared through the gloom of the
evening. As long as she could see him, or even fancy that she still
saw him, she thought only of his excellence; of his high character,
his kind heart, his talents--which in her estimation were ranked
perhaps above their real value--his tastes, which coincided so well
with her own, his quiet yet manly bearing, his useful pursuits, his
gait, appearance, and demeanour. All these were of a nature to win
the heart of such a girl as Clara Desmond; and then, probably, in
some indistinct way, she remembered the broad acres to which he was
the heir, and comforted herself by reflecting that this at least was
a match which none would think disgraceful for a daughter even of an
Earl of