'My grandmother and Jane won't be pacified till they see you. They think you are not fit to be in a house by yourself. They both fell on me for having let you go. You must come back, or my grandmother will think you gone off in despair, as you ought to be, and I shall never dare to speak to her.'

'At your service,' said the duteous Fitzjocelyn. 'I'll leave word at the lodge.'

'By-the-bye, are you up to walking?'

'Candidly, now I think of it, I doubt whether I am. Come, and let us order the carriage.'

'No--no;--I can't stand waiting--I'll go home and get over the first with granny--you come after. Yes; that's right.'

So the hunted Louis waited, contentedly, while James marched back, chary of his precious secret, and unwilling to reveal it even to her, and yet wanting her sympathy.

The disclosure was a greater shock than he had expected from her keen and playful interest in matters of love and matrimony. It was a revival of the mournful past, and she shed tears as she besought him not to be imprudent, to remember his poor father, and not rush into a hasty marriage. He and his sister had been used to poverty, but it was different with Miss Conway.

He bitterly replied, that Lady Conway would take care they were not imprudent; and that instant the granny's heart melted at the thought of his uncertain prospect, and at hearing of the struggles and sufferings that he had undergone. They had not talked half an hour, before she had taken home Isabel Conway to her heart as a daughter, and flown in the face of all her wisdom, but a.s.suring him that she well knew that riches had little to do with happiness, auguring an excellent living, and, with great sagacity, promising to settle the Terrace on his wife, and repeating, in perfect good faith, all the wonderful probabilities which her husband had seen in it forty years ago.

When Louis arrived, he found her alone, and divided between pride in her grandson's conquest, and some anxiety on his own account, which took the form of asking him what he meant by saying that Isabel aimed higher than himself.

'Did she not?' said Louis; and with a sort of compunction for a playful allusion to the sacred calling, he turned it off with, 'Why, what do you think of Roland ap Dynasvawr ap Roland ap Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Morgan ap Llywellwyn ap Roderic ap Caradoc ap Arthur ap Uther ap Pendragon?' running this off with calm, slow, impressive deliberation.

'Certify me, Louis dear, before I can quite rejoice, that this fun is not put on.'

'Did you think me an arrant dissembler? No, indeed: before I guessed how it was with them, I had found out--Oh! Aunt Kitty, shall I ever get Mary to believe in me, after the ridiculous way in which I have behaved to her?'

'Is this what you really mean?'

'Indeed it is. The very presence of Isabel could not keep me from recurring to her; and at home, not a room, not a scene, but is replete with recollections of all that she was to me last year! And that I should only understand it when half the world is between us! How mad I was! How shall I ever persuade her to forget my past folly? Past!

Nay, folly and inconsistency are blended in all I do, and now they have lost me the only person who could help me to conquer them! And now she is beyond my reach, and I shall never be worthy of her.'

He was much agitated. The sight of James's success, and the return to his solitary home, had stirred up his feelings very strongly; and he needed his aunt's fond soothing and sympathy--but it was not difficult to comfort and cheer him. His disposition was formed more for affection than pa.s.sion, and his attachment to Mary was of a calmer nature than his fiery cousin would have allowed to be love. It took a good deal of working-up to make it outwardly affect his spirits or demeanour, in general, it served only as an ingredient in the pensiveness that pervaded all his moods, even his most arrant nonsense.

The building of castles for James, and the narration of the pleasing delusion in which he had brought home his aunt, were sufficient to enliven him. He was to go the next morning to call upon Lady Conway, and see whether he could persuade her into any concessions: James was very anxious that Isabel and his grandmother should meet, and was beginning to propose that Louis should arrange an interview for them in Miss Faithfull's room, before the departure, which was fixed for Monday.

'I intend to call upon Lady Conway,' said Mrs. Frost, with dignity that made him feel as if he had been proposing something contraband.

Louis went first, and was highly entertained by the air of apology and condolence with which his aunt received him. She told him how excessively concerned she was, and how guilty she felt towards him--a score on which, he a.s.sured her, she had no need to reproach herself.

She had heard enough from Isabel to lead to so much admiration of his generosity, that he was obliged to put a stop to it, without being skilful enough to render sincerity amiable, but she seemed satisfied, eagerly a.s.sured him of her approval, and declared that she fully understood him.

Had she explained, he would have thought her understanding went too far. She entirely forgave him. After all, he was her own sister's son, and Isabel only a step-daughter; and though she had done her duty by putting Isabel in the way of the connexion, she secretly commended his prudence in withstanding beauty, and repairing the dilapidated estate with Peruvian gold. She sounded him, as a very wise man, on the chances of Oliver Dynevor doing something for his nephew, but did not receive much encouragement; though he prophesied that James was certain to get on, and uttered a rhapsody that nearly destroyed his new reputation for judgment. Lady Conway gave him an affectionate invitation to visit her whenever he could, and summoned the young ladies to wish him good-bye. The mute, blushing grat.i.tude of Isabel's look was beautiful beyond description; and Virginia's countenance was exceedingly arch and keen, though she was supposed to know nothing of the state of affairs.

Lady Conway was alone when Mrs. Frost was seen approaching the house.

The lady at once prepared to be affably gracious to her apologies and deprecations of displeasure; but she was quite disconcerted by the dignified manner of her entrance;--tall, n.o.ble-looking, in all the simple majesty of age, and of a high though gentle spirit, Lady Conway was surprised into absolute respect, and had to rally her ideas before, with a slight laugh, she could say, 'I see you are come to condole with me on the folly of our two young people.'

'I think too highly of them to call it folly,' said the heiress of the Dynevors.

'Why, in one way, to be sure,' hesitated Lady Conway, 'we cannot call it folly to be sensible of each other's merits; and if--if Mr. Dynevor have any expectations--I think your son is unmarried?'

'He is;' but she added, smiling, 'you will not expect me to allow that my youngest child is old enough to warrant any calculations on that score.'

'It is very unfortunate; I pity them from my heart. An engagement of this kind is a wretched beginning for life.'

'Oh, do not say so!' cried the old lady, 'it may often be the greatest blessing, the best incentive to both parties.'

Lady Conway was too much surprised to make a direct answer, but she continued, 'If my brother could exert his interest--and I know that he has so high an opinion of dear Mr. Dynevor--and you have so much influence. That dear, generous Fitzjocelyn, too--'

As soon as Mrs. Frost understood whom Lady Conway designated as her brother, she drew herself up, and said, coldly, that Lord Ormersfield had no church patronage, and no interest that he could exert on behalf of her grandson.

Again, 'it was most unlucky;' and Lady Conway proceeded to say that she was the more bound to act in opposition to her own feelings, because Mr. Mansell was resolved against bequeathing Beauchastel to any of his cousinhood who might marry a clergyman; disliking that the place should fall to a man who ought not to reside. It was a most unfortunate scruple; but in order to avoid offending him, and losing any chance, the engagement must remain a secret.

Mrs. Frost replied, that Mr. Mansell was perfectly right; and seemed in nowise discomfited or conscious that there was any condescension on her ladyship's part in winking at an attachment between Miss Conway and a Dynevor of Cheveleigh. She made neither complaint nor apology; there was nothing for Lady Conway to be gracious about; and when the request was made to see Miss Conway, her superiority was so fully established that there was no demur, and the favour seemed to be on her side.

The n.o.ble old matron had long been a subject of almost timid veneration to the maiden, and she obeyed the summons with more bashful awe than she had ever felt before; and with much fear lest the two elders might have been combining to make an appeal to her to give up her betrothal, for James's sake.

As she entered, the old lady came to meet her, held out both arms, and drew her into her bosom, with the fond words, 'My dear child!'

Isabel rested in her embrace, as if she had found her own mother again.

'My dear child,' again said Mrs. Frost, 'I am glad you like my Jem, for he has always been a good boy to his granny.'

The homeliness of the words made them particularly endearing, and Isabel ventured to put her arm round the slender waist.

'Yes, darling,' continued the grandmother; 'you will make him good and happy, and you must teach him to be patient, for I am afraid you will both want a great deal of patience and submission.'

'He will teach me,' whispered Isabel.

Lady Conway was fairly crying.

'I am glad to know that he has you to look to, when his old grandmother is gone.'

'Oh, don't say--'

'I shall make way for you some day,' said Mrs. Frost, caressing her.

'You are leaving us, my dear. It is quite right, and we will not murmur; but would not your mamma spare you to us for one evening? Could you not come and drink tea with us, that we may know each other a little better?'

The stepmother's affectionate a.s.sent, and even emotion, were a great surprise to Isabel; and James began to imagine that nothing was beyond Mrs. Frost's power.

Louis saved James the trouble of driving him away by going to dine with Mr. Calcott, and the evening was happy, even beyond antic.i.p.ation; the grandmother all affection, James all restless bliss, Isabel serene amid her blushes; and yet the conversation would not thrive, till Mrs. Frost took them out walking, and, when in the loneliest lane, conceived a wish to inquire the price of poultry at the nearest farm, and sent the others to walk on. Long did she talk of the crops, discourse of the French and Bohemian enormities, and smilingly contradict reports that the young lord was to marry the young lady, before the lovers reappeared, without the most distant idea where they had been.

After that, they could not leave off talking; they took granny into their counsels, and she heard Isabel confess how the day-dream of her life had been to live among the 'very good.' She smiled with humble self-conviction of falling far beneath the standard, as she discovered that the enthusiastic girl had found all her aspirations for 'goodness'

realized by Dynevor Terrace; and regarding it as peace, joy, and honour, to be linked with it. The newly-found happiness, and the effort to be worthy of it, were to bear her through all uncongenial scenes; she had such a secret of joy that she should never repine again.

'Ah! Isabel, and what am I to do?' said James.

'You ask?' she said, smiling. 'You, who have Northwold for your home, and live in the atmosphere I only breathe now and then?'

'Your presence is my atmosphere of life.'

'Mrs. Frost, tell him he must not talk so wrongly, so extravagantly, I mean.'

'It may be wrong; it is not extravagant. It falls only too far short of my feeling! What will the Terrace be without you?'