'Why should it be otherwise, my dear Milly? I don't think you have ever known much sorrow.'
'Not since my mother died—and I was only a child then—but that old pain has never quite gone out of my heart; and papa's marriage has been a greater grief to me than you would believe, Mary. This house has never seemed to be really my home since then. No, dear, it is a new life that is dawning for me—and O, such a bright one!'
She put her arms round my neck, and hid her face upon my shoulder.
'Can you guess what Angus Egerton said to me to-day?' she asked, in a low tremulous voice.
'Was it something very wonderful, dear—or something as old as the world we live in?'
'Not old to me, Mary—new and wonderful beyond all measure. I did not think he cared for me—I had never dared to hope; for I have liked him a little for a long time, dear, though I don't suppose you ever thought so.'
'My dear girl, I have known it from the very beginning. There is nothing in the world more transparent than your thoughts about Angus Egerton have been to me.'
'O Mary, how could you! And I have been so careful to say nothing!' she cried reproachfully. 'But he loves me, dear. He has loved me for a long time, he says; and he has asked me to be his wife.'
'What, after all those protestations about never asking a woman to share his poverty?'
'Yes, Mary; and he meant what he said. He told me that if I had been a penniless girl, he should have proposed to me ever so long ago. And he is to see papa to-morrow.'