“Mr. Clavering,” said she, rising from her chair; “I am so glad to see you, though I am almost angry with you for not coming to us sooner.  I have heard so much about you; of course you know that.”  Harry explained that he had only been a few days in town, and declared that he was happy to learn that he had been considered worth talking about.

“If you were worth accepting you were worth talking about.”

“Perhaps I was neither,” said he.

“Well; I am not going to flatter you yet.  Only as I think our Flo is without exception the most perfect girl I ever saw, I don’t suppose she would be guilty of making a bad choice.  Cissy, dear, this is Mr. Clavering.”

Cissy got up from her chair, and came up to him.  “Mamma says I am to love you very much,” said Cissy, putting up her face to be kissed.

“But I did not tell you to say I had told you,” said Mrs. Burton, laughing.

“And I will love you very much,” said Harry, taking her up in his arms.

“But not so much as Aunt Florence—­will you?”

They all knew it.  It was clear to him that everybody connected with the Burtons had been told of the engagement, and that they all spoke of it openly, as they did of any other everyday family occurrence.  There was not much reticence among the Burtons.  He could not but feel this, though now, at the present moment, he was disposed to think specially well of the family because Mrs. Burton and her children were so nice.

“And this is another daughter?”

“Yes; another future niece, Mr. Clavering.  But I suppose I may call you Harry; may I not?  My name is Cecilia.  Yes, that is Miss Pert.”

“I’m not Miss Pert,” said the little soft round ball of a girl from the chair.  “I’m Sophy Burton.  Oh, you musn’t tittle.”

Harry found himself quite at home in ten minutes; and, before Mr. Burton had returned, had been taken upstairs into the nursery to see Theodore Burton, Junior, in his cradle, Theodore Burton, Junior, being as yet only some few months old.  “Now you’ve seen us all,” said Mrs. Burton, “and we’ll go downstairs and wait for my husband.  I must let you into a secret, too.  We don’t dine till past seven; you may as well remember that for the future.  But I wanted to have you for half an hour to myself before dinner, so that I might look at you, and make up my mind about Flo’s choice.  I hope you won’t be angry with me?”

“And how have you made up your mind?”

“If you want to find that out, you must get it through Florence.  You may be quite sure I shall tell her; and I suppose I may be quite sure she will tell you.  Does she tell you everything?”

“I tell her everything,” said Harry, feeling himself, however, to be a little conscience-smitten at the moment, as he remembered his interview with Lady Ongar.  Things had occurred this very day which he certainly could not tell her.