"And I'm sure I hope you'll always be happy.

Good-bye, Lily." Then he left her, returning to the house, and she continued her walk, wandering down among the trees in the shrubbery, and not showing herself for the next half hour.

How many girls have some such lover as that,--a lover who says no more to them than Johnny Eames then said to Lily Dale, who never says more than that?
And yet when, in after years, they count over the names of all who have loved them, the name of that awkward youth is never forgotten.
That farewell had been spoken nearly two years since, and Lily Dale was then seventeen.

Since that time, John Eames had been home once, and during his month's holiday had often visited Allington.

But he had never improved upon that occasion of which I have told.