After a late dinner there, he found and seized the opportunity he had so long been waiting for.  Lucilla was sitting alone upon the veranda, with a book in her hand, but not reading, for her eyes were not on it.  She seemed to be thinking intently of something else.  But when Captain Keith took a seat by her side she welcomed him with a pleasant smile.

“So you leave us to-night,” she said.  “I hope you have enjoyed your visit well enough to feel a trifle sorry to go.”

“I have enjoyed my visit greatly,” he said in reply, “and I should like to prolong it; but it will not do to play all the time.  It seems lonely, too, to have to go away taking no one with me.  To go as Cousin Dick did this afternoon, with a dear young wife, would not be a hardship; but to go alone is rather dismal.  Don’t you think it must be?”

“Yes; I have never tried it, but I should think it was.  When mamma died and papa had to go away on his ship—­oh, you don’t know how hard it was to part with him—­I still had my brother Max and dear Gracie.  I had them both until a good while after papa came home to stay; so I have never been all alone.”

“And I sincerely hope you never may be,” he said.  “But do you never feel as if you would like to have a life companion, such as Maud was given to-day?”

“A husband, do you mean?  No, indeed! for then I should be obliged to leave my dear father—­the best man in the world, the dearest, kindest, most loving father to me.”

“He is all that, I am sure,” said Keith; “but, perhaps, some day you may find that you can love another even better than you love him.”

She shook her head dissentingly.

“I can hardly believe it possible.  It seems to me that it would just break my heart to have to leave my father or to be separated from him in any way.”

Keith sighed drearily.  “Miss Raymond,” he said, “I love you, I love you devotedly, and if—­if you have not given your affection to another, perhaps in time you may find it possible to return my love.  Will you not let me hope for that?”

“Oh, don’t!” she said, half rising to leave him, her face scarlet with blushes.  “I don’t know anything about love,—­that kind of love,—­and my father has forbidden me to listen to such things and——­”

“But he would let you this time, for he gave me permission to speak to you and—­and tell you of my love.”

“That is very strange; I don’t understand it,” she said, sinking back into her chair with a look of perplexity and distress on her face.  “Ah,” brightening a little, “I think papa knew there was no danger that I would be willing to leave him for anybody else.”

“Yes; I suppose that was it,” sighed Keith, and, at that moment, there came an interruption, very welcome to Lucilla, in the form of little Ned looking for papa.  And the next moment papa himself, to find Captain Keith and hand him a letter; a servant having just brought the afternoon mail.  Then Lucilla slipped away to her own room, where she stayed until summoned to the dining room by the tea bell.