"Yes, yes," cried Lily, "and tell him to come at once. Let Lizzie come too, and Mr. Musgrave. Mr. Musgrave is very fond of me, grandfather, and I like him very much. But want Alfred most."
She was tying a muffler round the old man's throat, when she suddenly exclaimed, "It's a shame to let you go; I'll run round, grandfather."
"No, child. You will catch cold. And think," he added gaily; "Felix may come in any moment. I shall not be gone long."
She listened to his footsteps and to the slamming of the street-door, and then knelt before the fire again. What a day has this been--never to be forgotten! the white day of her life! In an hour her hero would be with her. She rehearsed the scene that had taken place between them again and again. "I want a home--a helpmate. And there is but one woman in the world who can be to me what my heart yearns for. Lily--will you be my wife?" His wife! Why, if all the world were before her to choose from--if she could fix her own lot, her own destiny--that is what she would choose to be. Ah, how happy she would try to make him! A thought of Alfred crept in. Felix would be a good friend to him--a true friend. How much happier Alfred had been these last few days! his troubles seemed to be over. His smiling face, as she had seen it this very morning, when he ran back and kissed her, appeared in the fire among her other fancies that she conjured up there. Alfred and Lizzie married--herself and Felix in their little home—. She saw every room in it, and saw them all smiling at one another in the fire before which she was kneeling. But why was not Alfred here now? Swiftly she thought, "He cannot be with Lizzie; for the first thing Lizzie would tell him about would be about Felix and me, and Alfred would have run home to me at once." She started to her feet, and ran nervously to the window; and as she looked out into the dark roadway, a knock came at the street-door. "That is Alfred!" she cried, and ran down-stairs; but when she was in the dark passage, she remembered that the knock was not Alfred's. Alfred always knocked at the door with a flourish; this that she had heard was a single knock. It could not be her grandfather, either; for he had a latch-key. Perhaps it was Mrs. Podmore. The knock came again, and she mustered up sufficient courage to go to the street-door, and ask who was there. A strange voice answered her. "Did Mr. Wheels live there?" it asked. "Yes," she answered.
"Is his granddaughter at home?"
"Yes."
"I want to see her."
"What for?"
These questions were asked by Lily through the closed door: she was alone in the house, and was frightened to draw the lock.
"What for?" she inquired again, faintly.