it should be as though it had never been; and surely it was not for her to disturb so salutary an arrangement!  But yet she was up to bid him God speed as he went.  She could not bear,. so she excused the matter to herself she could not bear to think that he should regard her as ungrateful.  She knew all that he had done for them.  She had perceived that the taking of the land, the building of the sheds, the life which he had contrived in so short a time to throw into the old place, had all come from a desire on his part to do good to those in whose way he stood by family arrangements made almost before his birth; and she longed to say to him one word of thanks.  And had he not told her once in the heat of his disappointment; for then at that moment, as Clara had said to herself, she supposed that he must have been in some measure disappointed had he not even then told her that when she wanted a brother’s care, a brother’s care should be given to her by him?  Was she not therefore~ bound to do for him what she would do for a brother?

She, with her own hands, brought the coffee into the little breakfast parlour, and handed the cup into his hands.  The gig, which had come overnight from Taunton, was not yet at the door, and there was a minute or two during which they must speak to each other.  Who has not seen some such girl when she has come down early, without the full completeness of her morning toilet, and yet nicer, fresher, prettier to the eye of him who is so favoured, than she has ever been in more formal attire?  And what man who has been so favoured has not loved her who has so favoured him, even though he may not previously have been enamoured as deeply as poor Will Belton?

‘This is so good of you,’ he said.

‘I wish I knew how to be good to you,’ she answered not meaning to trench upon dangerous ground, but feeling, as the words came from her, that she had done so.  ’You have been so good to us, so very good to papa, that we owe you everything.  I am so grateful to you for saying that you will come back at Christmas.’

He had resolved that he would refrain from further love-making till the winter; but he found it very hard to refrain when so addressed.  To take her in his arms, and kiss her twenty times, and swear that he would never let her go to claim her at once savagely as his own, that was the line of conduct to which temptation prompted him.  How could she look at him so sweetly, how could she stand before him, ministering to him with all her pretty maidenly charms brought so close to him, without intending that he should love her?  But he did refrain.  ’Blood is thicker than water,’ said he.  ‘That’s the real reason why I first came.’

’I understand that quite, and it is that feeling that makes you so good.  But I’m afraid you are spending a great deal of money here and all for our sakes.’

’Not at all.  I shall get my money back again.  And if I didn’t, what then?  I’ve plenty of money. it is not money that I want.’