came to Lily and made his offer, he did it with perfect ease and thorough self-possession, for he almost knew that it was expected.  And Lily, though she had been flurried for a moment, had her answer pat enough.  She already loved the man with all her heart, delighted in his presence, basked in the sunshine of his manliness, rejoiced in his wit, and had tuned her ears to the tone of his voice.  It had all been done, and the world expected it.  Had he not made his offer, Lily would have been ill-treated;—­though, alas, alas, there was future ill-treatment, so much heavier, in store for her!  But there are other cases in which a lover cannot make himself known as such without great difficulty, and when he does do so, cannot hope for an immediate answer in his favour.  It is hard upon old friends that this difficulty should usually fall the heaviest upon them.  Crofts had been so intimate with the Dale family that very many persons had thought it probable that he would marry one of the girls.  Mrs Dale herself had thought so, and had almost hoped it.  Lily had certainly done both.  These thoughts and hopes had somewhat faded away, but yet their former existence should have been in the doctor’s favour.  But now, when he had in some way spoken out, Bell started back from him and would not believe that he was in earnest.  She probably loved him better than any man in the world, and yet, when he spoke to her of love, she could not bring herself to understand him.

“I don’t know what you mean, Dr Crofts; indeed I do not,” she said.

“I had meant to ask you to be my wife; simply that.  But you shall not have the pain of making me a positive refusal.  As I rode here to-day I thought of it.  During my frequent rides of late I have thought of little else.  But I told myself that I had no right to do it.  I have not even a house in which it would be fit that you should live.”

“Dr Crofts, if I loved you,—­if I wished to marry you—­” and then she stopped herself.

“But you do not?”

“No; I think not.  I suppose not.  No.  But in any way no consideration about money has anything to do with it.”

“But I am not that butcher or that baker whom you could love?”

“No,” said Bell; and then she stopped herself from further speech, not as intending to convey all her answer in that one word, but as not knowing how to fashion any further words.

“I knew it would be so,” said the doctor.

It will, I fear, be thought by those who condescend to criticise this lover’s conduct and his mode of carrying on his suit, that he was very unfit for such work.  Ladies will say that he wanted courage, and men will say that he wanted wit.  I am inclined, however, to believe that he behaved as well as men generally do behave on such occasions, and that he showed himself to be a good average lover.  There is your bold lover, who knocks his lady-love over as he does a bird, and who would anathematise himself