for it, please;
if you do, I shall be obliged to confess the truth. My dear sir, the
fact is, this is an act of impulse."

She paused, and looked us both in the face with a bright confidence in
her own flow of nonsense that was perfectly irresistible.

"I must tell you all about it," she ran on, leading the way to the
bench, and inviting us, by a little mock gesture of supplication, to
seat ourselves on either side of her. "I feel so guilty till I've told
you. Dear me! how nice this is! Here I am quite at home already. Isn't
it odd? Well, and how do you think it happened? The morning before
yesterday Matilda--there is Matilda, picking up my bonnet from the
bottom of that remarkably musty carriage--Matilda came and woke me as
usual, and I hadn't an idea in my head, I assure you, till she began
to brush my hair. Can you account for it?--I can't--but she seemed,
somehow, to brush a sudden fancy for coming here into my head. When
I went down to breakfast, I said to my aunt, 'Darling, I have an
irresistible impulse to go to Wales at once, instead of waiting till
the twentieth.' She made all the necessary objections, poor dear, and
my impulse got stronger and stronger with every one of them. 'I'm quite
certain,' I said, 'I shall never go at all if I don't go now.' 'In that
case,' says my aunt, 'ring the bell, and have your trunks packed. Your
whole future depends on your going; and you terrify me so inexpressibly
that I shall be glad to get rid of you.' You may not think it, to look
at her--but Matilda is a treasure; and in three hours more I was on the
Great Western Railway. I have not the least idea how I got here--except
that the men helped me everywhere. They are always such delightful
creatures! I have been casting myself, and my maid, and my trunks on
their tender mercies at every point in the journey, and their polite
attentions exceed all belief. I slept at your horrid little county town
last night; and the night before I missed a steamer or a train, I forget
which, and slept at Bristol; and that's how I got here. And, now I am
here, I ought to give my guardian a kiss--oughtn't I? Shall I call you
papa? I think I will. And shall I call _you_ uncle, sir, and give you a
kiss too? We shall come to it sooner or later--shan't we?--and we may as
well begin at once, I suppose."

Her fresh young lips touched my old withered cheek first, and then
Owen's; a soft, momentary shadow of tenderness, that was very pretty and
beco