“But if this difference did not exist,” I said:  “if we were both living in the same rank, Margaret—­”

She looked up quickly; then moved away a step or two, as I addressed her by her Christian name.

“Are you offended with me for calling you Margaret so soon?  I do not think of you as Miss Sherwin, but as Margaret—­are you offended with me for speaking as I think?”

No:  she ought not to be offended with me, or with anybody, for doing that.

“Suppose this difference in rank, which you so cruelly insist on, did not exist, would you tell me not to hope, not to speak then, as coldly as you tell me now?”

I must not ask her that—­it was no use—­the difference in rank did exist.

“Perhaps I have met you too late?—­perhaps you are already—­”

“No! oh, no!”—­she stopped abruptly, as the words passed her lips.  The same lovely blush which I had before seen spreading over her face, rose on it now.  She evidently felt that she had unguardedly said too much:  that she had given me an answer in a case where, according to every established love-law of the female code, I had no right to expect one.  Her next words accused me—­but in very low and broken tones—­of having committed an intrusion which she should hardly have expected from a gentleman in my position.

“I will regain your better opinion,” I said, eagerly catching at the most favourable interpretation of her last words, “by seeing you for the next time, and for all times after, with your father’s full permission.  I will write to-day, and ask for a private interview with him.  I will tell him all I have told you:  I will tell him that you take a rank in beauty and goodness, which is the highest rank in the land—­a far higher rank than mine—­the only rank I desire.” (A smile, which she vainly strove to repress, stole charmingly to her lips.) “Yes, I will do this; I will never leave him till his answer is favourable—­and then what would be yours?  One word, Margaret; one word before I go—­”

I attempted to take her hand a second time; but she broke from me, and hurried into the house.

What more could I desire?  What more could the modesty and timidity of a young girl concede to me?

The moment I reached home, I wrote to Mr. Sherwin.  The letter was superscribed “Private;” and simply requested an interview with him on a subject of importance, at any hour he might mention.  Unwilling to trust what I had written to the post, I sent my note by a messenger—­not one of our own servants, caution forbade that—­and instructed the man to wait for an answer:  if Mr. Sherwin was out, to wait till he came home.

After a long delay—­long to me; for my impatience would fain have turned hours into minutes—­I received a reply.  It was written on gilt-edged letter-paper, in a handwriting vulgarised by innumerable flourishes.  Mr. Sherwin presented his respectful compliments, and would be happy to have the honour of seeing me at North Villa, if quite convenient, at five o’clock to-morrow afternoon.