“By George!” he said to himself, his eyes sparkling, and his step quickening, “she has more in her than all the rest of them put together!”

Who were included in “the rest of them,” Lawrence was not prepared just then to say, but the expression was intended to have a very wide range.

It was about the middle of December, when Lawrence paid another visit to Mrs Keswick’s house.  The day was cold, but clear, and as he drove up to the outer gate, he saw the old lady returning from a walk to Howlett’s.  She stepped along briskly, and was in a very good humor, for she had just posted a carefully concocted letter to Mr Brandon, in which she had expatiated, in her peculiar style, on the pleasure which she expected from an early visit to Midbranch.  She had not the slightest idea of going there, at present, but she thought it quite time to freshen up the old gentleman’s anticipations.

Descending from his carriage to meet her, Lawrence was very warmly greeted, and the two went up to the house together.

“I expect the late Mrs Null will be very glad to see you,” said Mrs Keswick.  “I think she has burned up all her widow’s weeds.”

“You should be very much obliged to your niece,” said Mr Croft, “for so delicately ridding you of that dreadful fertilizer man.”

“Humph!” said the old lady.  “She cheated me out of the pleasure of telling him what I thought of him, and I shall never forgive her for that.”

As Lawrence and Annie sat together in the parlor that evening, he told her what he had been doing in New York, and this brought to her lips a question, which she was very anxious to have answered.  She knew that Lawrence was rich; that his methods of life and thought made him a man of the cities; and she felt quite certain that the position to which he would conduct her was that of the mistress of a handsome town-house, and the wife of a man of society.  She liked handsome town-houses, and she was sure she would like society; but it would all be very new and strange to her, and, although she was a brave girl at heart, she shrank from making such a plunge as this.

“How are we going to live?” repeated Lawrence.  “That, of course, is to be as you shall choose, but I have a plan to propose to you, and I want very much to hear what you think about it.  And the plan is, that we shall not live anywhere for a year or two, but wander, fancy free, over as much of the world as pleases us; and then decide where we shall settle down, and how we shall like to do it.”

If Annie’s answer had been expressed in words, it might have been given here.  It may be said, however, that it was very quick, very affirmative, and, in more ways than one, highly satisfactory to Lawrence.

“Is it London, and a landlady, and tea?” she presently asked.

“Yes, it is that,” he said.

“Is it the shops on the Boulevards?”

“Yes,” said Lawrence.