“Thank you!” said Bellew, turning and lifting his hat.

“Oh!—­I beg your pardon!” said Anthea.

Now as their eyes met, it seemed to Bellew as though he had lived all his life in expectation of this moment, and he knew that all his life he should never forget this moment.  But now, even while he looked at her, he saw her cheeks flush painfully, and her dark eyes grow troubled.

“I beg your pardon!” said she again, “I—­I thought—­Mr. Cassilis gave me to understand that you were—­”

“A very dusty, hungry-looking fellow, perhaps,” smiled Bellew, “and he was quite right, you know; the dust you can see for yourself, but the hunger you must take my word for.  As for the work, I assure you exercise is precisely what I am looking for.”

“But—­” said Anthea, and stopped, and tapped the grass nervously with her foot, and twisted one of her bonnet-strings, and meeting Bellew’s steady gaze, flushed again, “but you—­you are—­”

“My Uncle Porges,” her nephew chimed in, “an’ I brought him home with me ‘cause he’s going to help me to find a fortune, an’ he hasn’t got any place to go to ’cause his home’s far, far beyond the ’bounding billow,’—­so you will let him stay, won’t you, Auntie Anthea?”

“Why—­Georgy—­” she began, but seeing her distressed look, Bellew came to her rescue.

“Pray do, Miss Anthea,” said he in his quiet, easy manner.  “My name is Bellew,” he went on to explain, “I am an American, without family or friends, here, there or anywhere, and with nothing in the world to do but follow the path of the winds.  Indeed, I am rather a solitary fellow, at least—­I was, until I met my nephew Porges here.  Since then, I’ve been wondering if there would be—­er—­room for such as I, at Dapplemere?”

“Oh, there would be plenty of room,” said Anthea, hesitating, and wrinkling her white brow, for a lodger was something entirely new in her experience.

“As to my character,” pursued Bellew, “though something of a vagabond, I am not a rogue,—­at least, I hope not, and I could pay—­er—­four or five pounds a week—­”

“Oh!” exclaimed Anthea, with a little gasp.

“If that would be sufficient—­”

“It is—­a great deal too much!” said Anthea who would have scarcely dared to ask three.

“Pardon me!—­but I think not.” said Bellew, shaking his head, “you see, I am—­er—­rather extravagant in my eating,—­eggs, you know, lots of ’em, and ham, and beef, and—­er—­(a duck quacked loudly from the vicinity of a neighbouring pond),—­certainly,—­an occasional duck!  Indeed, five pounds a week would scarcely—­”

“Three would be ample!” said Anthea with a little nod of finality.

“Very well,” said Bellew, “we’ll make it four, and have done with it.”