“You are welcome, ever welcome to my humble home, my dear boy, for your own sake, and for those dear to you,” replied Grahame, with a return of former warmth and cordiality.  “More than usually welcome I may say, Edward, as this is your first visit here since your rescue from the bowels of the great deep.  You look confused and heated, and as if you would much rather run after your old companion than stay with me, but indeed I cannot spare you yet, I have so many questions to ask you.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Grahame, but indeed you must hear me first.”

“I came here to speak to you on a subject nearest my heart, and till that is told, till from your lips I know my fate, do not, for pity, ask me to speak on any other.  I meant not to have entered so abruptly on my mission, but that which Mr. Myrvin has imparted to me, and what I undesignedly overheard as I stood unseen on that terrace, have taken from me all the eloquence with which I meant to plead my cause.”

“Speak in your own proper person, Edward, and then I may perhaps hear you,” replied Grahame, from whom the sight of his young friend appeared to have banished all misanthropy.  “What I can, however, have to do with your fate, I know not, except that I will acquit you of all intentional eaves-dropping, if it be that which troubles you; and what can Mr. Myrvin have said to rob you of eloquence?”

“He told me that—­that you had encouraged Philip Clapperton’s addresses to Lil—­to Miss Grahame,” answered Edward, with increasing agitation, for he perceived, what was indeed the truth, that Grahame had not the least idea of his intentions.

“And what can that have to do with you, young man?” inquired Grahame, somewhat haughtily, and his brow darkened.  “You have not seen Lilla, to be infected with her prejudices, and in what manner can my wishes with regard to my daughter on that head concern you?”

“In what manner?  Mr. Grahame, I came hither with my aunt’s and uncle’s blessing on my purpose, to seek from you your gentle daughter’s hand.  I am not a man of many words, and all I had to say appears to have departed, and left me speechless.  I came here to implore your consent, for without it I knew ’twere vain to think or hope to make your Lilla mine.  I came to plead to you, and armed with your blessing, plead my cause to her, and you ask me how Mr. Myrvin’s intelligence can affect me.  Speak, then, at once; in pity to that weakness which makes me feel as if my lasting happiness or misery depends upon your answer.”

“And do you, Edward, do you love my poor child?” asked the father, with a quivering lip and glistening eye, as he laid his hand, which trembled, on the young man’s shoulder.