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"What does heround amazed upon her aunt

"I am afraid he does not quite know," said Er fro over her,

"you are the last who should say that Have I not told you that there is

nothing now in our way--no one with a right to object, andher--? What is the matter?" he added,

startled by her look

"Ah, Colin! I thought you knew--"

"Knehat, Erether

"Knehat I am," she said; "knew the iht I was the invalid, the cripple, with every one"

"I knew you had suffered cruelly; I knew you were lame," he said,

breathlessly; "but--what--"

"It is more than lame," she said "I should be better off if the fiction

of the Queens of Spain were truth with me I could not move from this

chair without help Oh, Colin! poor Colin! it was very cruel not to

have prepared you for this!" she added, as he gazed at her in grief and

dismay, and made a vain attempt to find the voice that would not come

"Yes, indeed it is so," she said; "the explosion, rather than the fire,