Poor Miss Lang! After all her care that her young pupils’ heads should not be turned by folly about marriage and noblemen, the very event she had always viewed as most absurdly improbable had really occurred, and it was impossible to keep it a secret; though Miss Marshall did her very best to appear as usual, heard lessons with her accustomed diligence, conducted the daily exercises, watched over the instructions by masters, and presided over the needlework. But she grew whiter, more pinched, and her little face more mouse-like every day, and the elder girls whispered fancies about her. ‘She had no doubt heard that Lord Northmoor had broken it off!’—‘A little poky attorney’s clerk, of course he would.’—‘Poor dear thing, she will go into a consumption! Didn’t you hear her cough last night?’—‘And then we’ll all throw wreaths into her grave!’—‘Oh, that was only Elsie Harris!’—‘Nonsense, Mabel, I’m sure it was her, poor thing. Prenez garde, la vieille Dragonne vient.’

That Lord Northmoor was to come back by the mail train was known, and Miss Lang had sent a polite note to invite him to afternoon tea on the Sunday. The church to which he had been for many years devoted was a district one, and Miss Lang’s establishment had their places in the old parish church, so there was not much chance of meeting in the morning, though one pupil observed to another that ‘she should think him a beast if they did not meet him on the way to church.’

It is to be feared that she had to form this opinion, but on the other hand, by the early dinner-time, tidings pervaded the school that Lord Northmoor had been at St. Basil’s, and sung in his surplice just as if nothing had happened! The more sensational party of girls further averred that he had been base enough to walk thither with Miss Burford, and that Miss Marshall had been crying all church time. Whether this was true or not, it was certain that she ate scarcely any dinner, and that Miss Lang insisted on administering a glass of wine.

Moreover, when dinner was finally over, she quietly crept up to her own room, and resumed her church-going bonnet—a little black net, with a long-enduring bunch of violets. Then she knelt down and entreated, ‘Oh, show me Thy will, and give me strength and judgment to do that which may be best for him, and may neither of us be beguiled by the world or by ambition.’

Then she peeped out to make sure that the coast was clear—not that she was not quite free to go where she pleased, but she dreaded eyes and titters—out at the door, to the corner of the lane where for many a Sunday afternoon there had been a quiet tryste and walk. Her heart beat so as almost to choke her, and she hardly durst raise her eyes to see if the accustomed figure awaited her. Was it the accustomed figure? Her eyes dazzled so under her little holland parasol that she could hardly see, and though there was a movement towards her, she felt unable to look up till she heard the words, ‘Mary, at last!’ and felt the clasp of the hand.

‘Oh, Frank—I mean—’

‘You mean Frank, your own Frank; nothing else to you.’

‘Ought you?’ And as she murmured she looked up. It was the same, but still a certain change was there, almost indescribable, but still to be felt, as if a line of toil and weariness had passed from the cheek. The quiet gray eyes were brighter and more eager, the bearing as if ten years had been taken from the forty, and though Mary did not perceive the details, the dress showing that his mourning had not come from the country town tailor and outfitter, even the soft hat a very different article from that which was wont to replace the well-cherished tall one of Sunday mornings.

‘I had not much time,’ he said, ‘but I thought this would be of the most use,’ and he began clasping on her arm a gold bracelet with a tiny watch on it. ‘I thought you would like best to keep our old ring.’

‘If—if I ought to keep it at all,’ she faltered.

‘Now, Mary, I will not have an afternoon spoilt by any folly of that sort,’ he said.

‘Is it folly? Nay, listen. Should you not get on far far better without such a poor little stupid thing as I am?’

‘I always thought I was the stupid one.’

‘You—but you are a man.’

‘So much the worse!’

‘Yes; but, Frank, don’t you see what I mean? This thing has come to you, and you can’t help it, and you are descended from these people really; but it would be choice for me, and I could not bear to feel that you were ashamed of me.’

‘Never!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look here, Mary. What should I do without you to come back to and be at rest with? All the time I was talking to those ladies and going through those fine rooms, I was thinking of the one comfort I should have when I have you all to myself. See,’ he added, going over the arguments that he had no doubt prepared, ‘it is not as if you were like poor Emma. You are a lady all over, and have always lived with ladies; and yet you are not too grand for me. Think what you would leave me to—to be wretched by myself, or else— I could never be at home with those high-bred folk. I felt it every moment, though Miss Morton was very kind, and even wanted me to call her Birdie. I did feel thankful I could tell her I was engaged.’

‘You did!’

‘Yes; and she was very kind, and said she was glad of it, and hoped soon to know you.’

‘Oh, Frank dear, I am sure no one ever was more really noble-hearted than you,’ she almost sobbed; ‘you know how I shall always feel it; but yet, but yet I can’t help thinking you ought to leave it a little more unsettled till you have looked about a little and seen whether I should be a very great disadvantage to you.’

‘Seen whether I could find such a dear, unselfish little woman, eh? No, no, Mary, put all that out of your head. We have not loved one another for twenty years for a trumpery title to come between us now! And you need not fear being too well off for the position. The agent, Hailes, has been continually apologising to me for the smallness of the means. He says either we must have no house in London, or else let Northmoor. He cannot tell me yet exactly what income we shall have, but the farms don’t let well, and there is not much ready money.’

‘Every one says you ought to marry a lady of fortune.’

‘My dear Mary, to what would you condemn me? What sort of lady of fortune do you think would take an old stick like me for the sake of being my Lady? I really shall begin to believe you are tired of it.’

‘Stick! oh no, no. Staff, if’—and the manner in which she began to cling was answer full and complete; indeed, as she saw that her resistance had begun to hurt him as much as herself, she felt herself free to throw herself into the interests, and ask, ‘Is Northmoor a very nice place?’

‘Not so pretty as Cotes Kenton outside. A great white house, with a portico for carriages to drive under, and not kept up very well, patches of plaster coming off; but there is a beautiful view over the woods, with a purple moor beyond.’

‘And inside?’

‘Well, rather dreary, waiting for you to make it homelike. They have not lived there much for some time past. Lady Adela has lived in the Dower House, and will continue there.’

‘Did you see much of them?’

‘Not Lady Adela. Poor lady, she had her own relations with her. She had not by any means recovered the loss of her little boy, and I can quite understand that it must have been too trying for her to see me in his place. I understand from Hailes—’

‘Your Mr. Burford,’ said Mary, smiling.

‘That she is a very refined, rather exclusive and domestic lady, devoted to her little girl, and extremely kind to the poor. Indeed, so is Miss Morton, but she prefers the London poor, and is altogether rather flighty, and what Hailes calls an unconventional young lady. There was a very nice lady with her, Mrs. Bury, the daughter of a brother of the late Lord, a widow, and very kind and friendly. Both were very good-natured, Miss Morton always acted hostess, and talked continually.’

‘About her father?’

‘Oh no, I do not think he had been a very affectionate father, and their habits and tastes had been very different. Lady Adela seems to have latterly been more to him. Miss Morton was chiefly concerned to advise me about politics and social questions, and how to deal with the estate and the tenants.’

He seemed somewhat to shudder at the recollection, and Mary certainly conceived a dread of the ladies of Northmoor. It was further elicited that he meant to help Mr. Burford through all the work and arrangements consequent on his own succession, indeed, to remain at his post either till a successor was found, or the junior sufficiently indoctrinated to take the place. Of course, as he said, six months’ notice was due, but Mr. Burford has waived this. During this time he meant to go to see ‘poor Emma’ at Westhaven, but it was not an expedition he seemed much to relish, and he wished to defer it till he could definitely tell what it would be in his power to do for her and her children, for whose education he was really anxious, rejoicing that they were still young enough to be moulded.

Then came the tea at Miss Lang’s—a stately meal, when the two ladies were grand; Lord Northmoor became shy and frozen, monosyllabic, and only spasmodically able to utter; and Mary felt it in all her nerves and subsided into her smallest self, under the sense that nobody ever would do him justice.