"The holidays will be up a week to-morrow."
A vista of the miserable time after her departure, when all things would be dark and dreary, wanting her who had come to make his heart's sunshine, cast its foreshadowing across the brain of Isaac. He turned to her in his impulse, speaking passionately.
"Anna, I cannot lose you. Rather than that, I must--I must--"
"Must what?" she asked, innocently.
"Keep you here on a visit to myself--a visit that can never terminate."
Insensibly, she drew a little from him. Not that the words would have been unwelcome had circumstances justified them; how welcome, the sudden rush of inward joy, the wild coursing on of all her pulses, told her. But--loving him though she did; conscious or half-conscious of his love for her--it never occurred to the mind of Anna Chester that a union would be within the range of possibility. She--the poor humble slave--be wedded by a great and wealthy gentleman like Isaac Thornycroft!
"Would you object to the visit, Anna--though it were to be for life?"
"It could not be," she answered, in a low tone, not affecting to misunderstand him.
"Oh, couldn't it!" said Isaac, amused, and taking up rather the wrong view of the words. "But if you and I say it shall?"
"Halloa! Is it you, Isaac? How d'ye do, Miss Chester?"