“Oh, papa! if you talk in that way I must, I must,” and she burst into tears.

Sir Jasper bent over her and gave her a kiss-—a kiss that from him was something to remember.  It was late, and summonses to a hurried meal were ringing through Beechcroft Cottage, where the Clipstone party waited to see the illuminations.

Talk was eager between the sellers and the sailors as Valetta described the two parties, the fate of the Indian screen, and the misconduct of Cockneys in their launches were discussed by many a voice, but Gillian was unwontedly silent.  Her mother had no time for more than a kiss before the shouts of Wilfred, Fergus, and Primrose warned them that the illuminations were beginning.  She could only catch Mysie, and beg her to keep the younger ones away from Gillian and the Captain.  Mysie opened her brown eyes wide and said—-

“Oh!” Then, “Is it really?”

“Really, my dear, and remember that it is his last evening!”

“Oh!” said Mysie again.  “I never thought it of Gill!  May I tell Valetta?”

“Better not, my dear, if it can be helped.”

A screaming for Gill was heard, and Mysie hastened to answer it.  Lady Merrifield was too much tired to do anything but sit in the garden with Miss Mohun and look out at the ships, glittering with festoons of coloured lamps, reflected in the sea, but the young people went further afield, out on the cliff path to Rotherwood Park.  The populace were mainly collected on the quay, and this formed a more select promenade, though by no means absolute solitude.  Sir Jasper really did keep guard over the path along which Gillian allowed her Captain to conduct her, not exactly knowing which way they were going, and quite away from the bay and all its attractions.

She heard him out without any of the sharp, impatient answers in which her maiden coyness was wont to disguise itself, as he told her of his hopes and plans for the time when his three years of the Mediterranean should be over.

“And you see you can go on studying all the time, if you must be so clever.”

“I think one ought to make the most of oneself, just as you want to rise in your profession!  No, indeed, I could not bear you if you wanted me to sit down and idle, or to dawdle yourself.”

“Don’t grow too clever for me.”

“Mother always says that a real man has stuff in him that is quite different from cleverness, and yet I could not bear to give that up.  I am so glad you don’t mind.”

“Mind!  I mind nothing but to know you are caring for me.  And you will write to me?”

“I shan’t know what to say.  You will tell of volcanoes, and Athens, and Constantinople, and Egypt, and the Holy Land, and I shall have nothing to say but who lectures in college.”

“Little you know what that will be to me.”

It was a curious sensation all the time to Gillian, with a dawning sense that was hardly yet love—-she was afraid of that-—but of something good and brave and worthy that had become hers.  She had felt something analogous when the big deer-hound at Stokesley came and put his head upon her lap.  But the hound showed himself grateful for caresses, and so did her present giant when the road grew rough, and she let him draw her arm into his and talk to her.