“It is a very easy thing, Miles, to get skirts made to your round-about.”

“No doubt, Lucy; but, with whose money?  I have been in such a tumult of happiness, as to have forgotten that I am a beggar; that I am not a suitable match for you!  Had I only Clawbonny, I should feel less humiliated.  With Clawbonny I could feel myself entitled to some portion of the world’s consideration.”

We were in the library by this time.  Lucy looked at me a moment, intently; and I could see she was pained at my allusion.  Taking a little key from a cabinet where she kept it, she opened a small drawer, and showed me the identical gold pieces that had once been in my possession, and which I had returned to her, after my first voyage to sea.  I perceived that the pearls she had obtained under Grace’s bequest, as well as those which were my own property, if I could be said to own anything, were kept in the same place.  Holding the gold in the palm of a little hand that was as soft as velvet and as white as ivory, she said—­

“You once took all I had, Miles, and this without pretending to more than a brother’s love; why should you hesitate to do it again, now you say you wish to become my husband?”

“Precious creature!  I believe you will cure me of even my silly pride.”  Then taking up the pearls, I threw them on her neck, where they hung in a long chain, rivalling the skin with which they came in contact—­“There—­I have said these pearls should be an offering to my wife, and I now make it; though I scarce know how they are to be kept from the grasp of Daggett.”

Lucy kissed the pearls—­I knew she did not do it on account of any love for them—­and tears came into her eyes.  I believe she had long waited to receive this gift, in the precise character in which it was now received.

“Thank you, dear Miles,” she said.  “You see how freely I accept your gifts; and why should you hesitate to receive mine?  As for this Mr. Daggett, it will be easy enough to get rid of his claim.  I shall be of age before he can bring his cause to trial, as I learn; then nothing will be easier than for Miles Wailingford to pay all his debts; for by that time, all that is now mine will be yours.  No—­no—­this Mr. Daggett shall not easily rob me of this precious gift.”

“Rupert”—­I said, by way of getting her answer.

“Rupert will not influence my conduct, any further than I shall insist on returning every dollar he has received from you, in the name of our sainted Grace.  But I hear my father’s voice, and speaking to some other person.  I had hoped we should dine alone!”