“I almost feel as though it must be bad in me,” returned Louisa, after sitting thoughtful awhile, “to be so ready to agree with you, and to be so lightened in my heart by what you say.”

“I only say what is reasonable; nothing worse. I have talked it over with my friend Tom more than once⁠—of course I remain on terms of perfect confidence with Tom⁠—and he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of his. Will you walk?”

They strolled away, among the lanes beginning to be indistinct in the twilight⁠—she leaning on his arm⁠—and she little thought how she was going down, down, down, Mrs. Sparsit’s staircase.