"Ungrateful! Why, it is I who ask a favour."
"But I am grateful for your kindness in wishing to have me at your house. I will go there some day with Suzette, when you are quite alone, and you shall show me the Mandarin-room."
"That is too good of you. Mind, I shall exact the performance of that promise. You are very fond of Suzette, I think, Mrs. Wornock?"
"Yes, I am very fond of her. She is the only girl with whom I have ever felt in sympathy; just as you are the only young man, except my son, for whom I have ever cared."
"You link us together in your thoughts."
"I do, Allan," she answered gravely, "and I hoped to see you linked by-and-by in a lifelong union."
"That is my own fondest hope," he said. "How did you discover my secret?"
"Your secret! My dear Allan, I have known that you were in love with Suzette almost from the first time I saw you together—yes, even that afternoon at the Grove."
"You were very sympathetic, very quick to read my thoughts. I own that I admired her immensely even at that early stage of our acquaintance."
"And admiration soon grew into love. It has been such happiness for me to watch the growth of that love—to see you two young creatures so trustful and so happy together, walking about that old garden yonder, which has seen so little of youth or of happiness. I felt almost as a mother might have felt watching the happiness of her son. Indeed, Allan, you have become to me almost as a second son."