‘You are full of dreams, Emily.’

’Yes; I suppose I am.  Everything is pleasant and happy in dreams.  I love dreaming.  They thought I’d never learn to read; but it wasn’t because I was stupid, but because I wouldn’t study.  I’d put my hands to my head, and, looking at the book, which I didn’t see, I’d think of all sorts of things, imagine myself a fairy princess.’

‘And it was in this room that you dreamed all those dreams?’

’Yes; in this dear old room.  You see that picture:  that is one of the things I intended to ask you to give me.’

‘What?  That old, dilapidated print?’

’You mustn’t abuse my picture.  I used to spend hours wondering if those horsemen galloping so madly through the wood were robbers, and if they had robbed the castle shown between the trees.  I used to wonder if they would succeed in escaping.  They wouldn’t gallop their horses like that unless they were being pursued....  Can I have the picture?’

‘Of course you can.  Is that—­that is not all you are going to ask me for?’

‘I did think of asking you for a few more things.  Do you mind?’

‘No, not the least.  The more you ask for, the more I shall be pleased.’

‘Then you must come down-stairs.’

They went down to the next landing.  Emily stopped before a bed-room, and, looking at Hubert shyly and interrogatively, she said—­

’This is my room.  I don’t know if it is in a fit state to show you.  I’m not a very tidy girl.  I’ll look first.’

‘Yes; it will do,’ she said, drawing back.  ’You can look in.  I want you to give me that wardrobe.  It isn’t a very handsome one, but I’ve used it ever since I was a little girl; it has a hollow top, and I used to hide things there.  Do you think you can spare it?’

‘Yes; I think I can,’ he said, smiling.

Then she led him up-stairs through the old lumber rooms, picking out here and there some generally broken and always worthless piece of furniture, pleading for it timidly, and strangely delighted when he nodded, granting her every request.  She asked him to pull out what she had chosen from the débris, and a curious collection they made in the passage—­dim and worm-eaten pictures, small book-cases, broken vases which she proposed mending.

Hubert wiped the dust from his hands and coat-sleeves.

’What a lot of things you have given me!  Now we shall be able to get on nicely with our furnishing.’

‘What furnishing?’

’The furnishing of the little house in London where Julia and I are going to live.  You said you intended to add a hundred a year to the three hundred a year which Mr. Burnett should have left me; I don’t see why you should do such a thing, but if you do we shall have four hundred a year to live upon.  Julia says that we shall then be able to afford to give fifty pounds a year for a house.  We can get a very nice little house, she says, for that—­of