Perhaps the maiden lady preserves more than any other this sensitiveness, inborn in women, to the approach of the critical moment in the affairs of the heart.  The day may some time be past when she—­is sensitive for herself—­philosophers say otherwise—­but she is easily put in a flutter by the affair of another.  Perhaps this is because the negative (as we say in these days) which takes impressions retains all its delicacy from the fact that none of them have ever been developed, and perhaps it is a wise provision of nature that age in a heart unsatisfied should awaken lively apprehensive curiosity and sympathy about the manifestation of the tender passion in others.  It certainly is a note of the kindliness and charity of the maiden mind that its sympathies are so apt to be most strongly excited in the success of the wooer.  This interest may be quite separable from the common feminine desire to make a match whenever there is the least chance of it.  Miss Forsythe was not a match-maker, but Margaret herself would not have been more embarrassed than she was at the beginning of this interview.

When Mr. Lyon was seated she made the book she had in her hand the excuse for beginning a talk about the confidence young novelists seem to have in their ability to upset the Christian religion by a fictitious representation of life, but her visitor was too preoccupied to join in it.  He rose and stood leaning his arm upon the mantel-piece, and looking into the fire, and said, abruptly, at last: 

“I called to see you, Miss Forsythe, to—­to consult you about your niece.”

“About her career?” asked Miss Forsythe, with a nervous consciousness of falsehood.

“Yes, about her career; that is, in a way,” turning towards her with a little smile.

“Yes?”

“You must have seen my interest in her.  You must have known why I stayed on and on.  But it was, it is, all so uncertain.  I wanted to ask your permission to speak my mind to her.”

“Are you quite sure you know your own mind?” asked Miss Forsythe, defensively.

“Sure—­sure; I have never had the feeling for any other woman I have for her.”

“Margaret is a noble girl; she is very independent,” suggested Miss Forsythe, still avoiding the point.

“I know.  I don’t ask you her feeling.”  Mr. Lyon was standing quietly looking down into the coals.  “She is the only woman in the world to me.  I love her.  Are you against me?” he asked, suddenly looking up, with a flush in his face.

“Oh, no! no!” exclaimed Miss Forsythe, with another access of timidity.  “I shouldn’t take the responsibility of being against you, or—­or otherwise.  It is very manly in you to come to me, and I am sure I—­we all wish nothing but your own happiness.  And so far as I am concerned—­”

“Then I have your permission?” he asked, eagerly.

“My permission, Mr. Lyon? why, it is so new to me, I scarcely realized that I had any permission,” she said, with a little attempt at pleasantry.  “But as her aunt—­and guardian, as one may say—­personally I should have the greatest satisfaction to know that Margaret’s destiny was in the hands of one we all esteem and know as we do you.”