“Only that she is a nobody, without either money or position and I think you ought to have both when you marry.”

“Thanks for the implied compliment; but I do not fancy that an Australian merchant can expect to secure a wife of very exalted position; and I am the last man in the world to marry for money.”

“I don’t for a moment suppose you would marry any one you didn’t like, from mercenary considerations; but there is no reason you should make a foolish match.”

“Of course not.  I think it very doubtful whether I shall ever marry at all.  I am just the kind of man to go down to my grave a bachelor.”

“Why so, Gilbert?”

“Well, I can hardly tell you, my dear.  Perhaps I am rather difficult to please—­just a little stony-hearted and invulnerable.  I know that since I was a boy, and got over my schoolboy love affairs, I have never seen the woman who could touch my heart.  I have met plenty of pretty women, and plenty of brilliant women, of course, in society; and have admired them, and there an end.  I have never seen a woman whose face impressed me so much at first sight as the face of your friend, Miss Nowell.”

“I am very sorry for that.”

“But why, Belle?”

“Because the girl is a nobody—­less than nobody.  There is an unpleasant kind of mystery about her birth.”

“How is that?  Her uncle, Captain Sedgewick, seems to be a gentleman.”

“Captain Sedgewick is very well, but he is not her uncle; he adopted her when she was a very little girl.”

“But who are her people, and how did she fall into his hands?”

“I have never heard that.  He is not very fond of talking about the subject.  When we first came to know them, he told us that Marian was only his adopted niece; and he has never told us any more than that.”

“She is the daughter of some friend, I suppose.  They seem very much attached to each other.”

“Yes, she is very fond of him, and he of her.  She is an amiable girl; I have nothing to say against her—­but——­”

“But what, Belle?”

“I shouldn’t like you to fall in love with her.”

“But I should, mamma!” cried the damsel in scarlet stockings, who had absorbed every word of the foregoing conversation.  “I should like uncle Gil to love Marian just as I love her.  She is the dearest girl in the world.  When we had a juvenile party last winter, it was Marian who dressed the Christmas-tree—­every bit; and she played the piano for us all the evening, didn’t she, mamma?”

“She is very good-natured, Lucy; but you mustn’t talk nonsense; and you ought not to listen when your uncle and I are talking.  It is very rude.”

“But!  I can’t help hearing you, mamma.”

They were at home by this time, within the grounds of a handsome red-brick house of the early Georgian era, which had been the property of the Listers ever since it was built.  Without, the gardens were a picture of neatness and order; within, everything was solid and comfortable:  the furniture of a somewhat ponderous and exploded fashion, but handsome withal, and brightened here and there by some concession to modern notions of elegance or ease—­a dainty little table for books, a luxurious arm-chair, and so on.