"Certainly."

"I shall be so glad to have a line from Rufford. Maddox Hall, you know; Stafford."

"I will remember."

"And dear old Jack. Tell me when you write what Jack has been doing."

Then she put out her hand and he held it. "I wonder whether you will ever remember--" But she did not quite know what to bid him remember, and therefore turned away her face and wiped away a tear, and then smiled as she turned her back on him. The carriage was at the door, and the ladies flocked into the hall, and then not another word could be said.

"That's what I call a really nice country house," said Lady Augustus as she was driven away. Arabella sat back in the phaeton lost in thought and said nothing. "Everything so well done, and yet none of all that fuss that there is at Mistletoe." She paused but still her daughter did not speak. "If I were beginning the world again I would not wish for a better establishment than that. Why can't you answer me a word when I speak to you?"

"Of course it's all very nice. What's the good of going on in that way? What a shame it is that a man like that should have so much and that a girl like me should have nothing at all. I know twice as much as he does, and am twice as clever, and yet I've got to treat him as though he were a G.o.d. He's all very well, but what would anybody think of him if he were a younger brother with 300 a year." This was a kind of philosophy which Lady Augustus hated. She threw herself back therefore in the phaeton and pretended to go to sleep.

The wheels were not out of sight of the house before the attack on the Trefoils began. "I had heard of Lady Augustus before," said Lady Penwether, "but I didn't think that any woman could be so disagreeable."

"So vulgar," said Miss Penge.

"Wasn't she the daughter of an ironmonger?" asked the elder Miss G.o.dolphin.

"The girl of course is handsome," said Lady Penwether.

"But so self-sufficient," said Miss G.o.dolphin.

"And almost as vulgar as her mother," said Miss Penge.

"She may be clever," said Lady Penwether, "but I do not think I should ever like her."

"She is one of those girls whom only gentlemen like," said Miss Penge.

"And whom they don't like very long," said Lady Penwether.

"How well I understand all this," said Lord Rufford turning to the younger Miss G.o.dolphin. "It is all said for my benefit, and considered to be necessary because I danced with the young lady last night."

"I hope you are not attributing such a motive to me," said Miss Penge.

"Or to me," said Miss G.o.dolphin.

"I look on both of you and Eleanor as all one on the present occasion. I am considered to be falling over a precipice, and she has got hold of my coat tails. Of course you wouldn't be Christians if you didn't both of you seize a foot."

"Looking at it in that light I certainly wish to be understood as holding on very fast," said Miss Penge.

CHAPTER XXVI.

GIVE ME SIX MONTHS.

There was a great deal of trouble and some very genuine sorrow in the attorney's house at Dillsborough during the first week in December. Mr. Masters had declared to his wife that Mary should go to Cheltenham and a letter was written to Lady Ushant accepting the invitation. The 20 too was forthcoming and the dress and the boots and the hat were bought. But while this was going on Mrs. Masters took care that there should be no comfort whatever around them and made every meal a separate curse to the unfortunate lawyer. She told him ten times a day that she had been a mother to his daughter, but declared that such a position was no longer possible to her as the girl had been taken altogether out of her hands. To Mary she hardly spoke at all and made her thoroughly wish that Lady Ushant's kindness had been declined. "Mamma," she said one day, "I had rather write now and tell her that I cannot come."

"After all the money has been wasted!"

"I have only got things that I must have had very soon."

"If you have got anything to say you had better talk to your father.

I know nothing about it."

"You break my heart when you say that, mamma."

"You think nothing about breaking mine;--or that young man's who is behaving so well to you. What makes me mad is to see you shilly-shallying with him."

"Mamma, I haven't shilly-shallied."

"That's what I call it. Why can't you speak him fair and tell him you'll have him and settle yourself down properly? You've got some idea into your silly head that what you call a gentleman will come after you."

"Mamma, that isn't fair."

"Very well, miss. As your father takes your part of course you can say what you please to me. I say it is so." Mary knew very well what her mother meant and was safe at least from any allusion to Reginald Morton. There was an idea prevalent in the house, and not without some cause, that Mr. Surtees the curate had looked with an eye of favour on Mary Masters. Mr. Surtees was certainly a gentleman, but his income was strictly limited to the sum of 120 per annum which he received from Mr. Mainwaring. Now Mrs. Masters disliked clergymen, disliked gentlemen, and especially disliked poverty; and therefore was not disposed to look upon Mr. Surtees as an eligible suitor for her stepdaughter. But as the curate's courtship had hitherto been of the coldest kind and as it had received no encouragement from the young lady, Mary was certainly justified in declaring that the allusion was not fair. "What I want to know is this;--are you prepared to marry Lawrence Twentyman?" To this question, as Mary could not give a favourable answer, she thought it best to make none at all. "There is a man as has got a house fit for any woman, and means to keep it; who can give a young woman everything that she ought to want;--and a handsome fellow too, with some life in him; one who really dotes on you,--as men don't often do on young women now as far as I can see. I wonder what it is you would have?"

"I want nothing, mamma."

"Yes you do. You have been reading books of poetry till you don't know what it is you do want. You've got your head full of claptraps and tantrums till you haven't a grain of sense belonging to you. I hate such ways. It's a spurning of the gifts of Providence not to have such a man as Lawrence Twentyman when he comes in your way. Who are you, I wonder, that you shouldn't be contented with such as him?

He'll go and take some one else and then you'll be fit to break your heart, fretting after him, and I shan't pity you a bit. It'll serve you right and you'll die an old maid, and what there will be for you to live upon G.o.d in heaven only knows. You're breaking your father's heart, as it is." Then she sat down in a rocking-chair and throwing her ap.r.o.n over her eyes gave herself up to a deluge of hysterical tears.

This was very hard upon Mary for though she did not believe all the horrible things which her stepmother said to her she did believe some of them. She was not afraid of the fate of an old maid which was threatened, but she did think that her marriage with this man would be for the benefit of the family and a great relief to her father. And she knew too that he was respectable, and believed him to be thoroughly earnest in his love. For such love as that it is impossible that a girl should not be grateful. There was nothing to allure him, nothing to tempt him to such a marriage, but a simple appreciation of her personal merits. And in life he was at any rate her equal. She had told Reginald Morton that Larry Twentyman was a fit companion for her and for her sisters, and she owned as much to herself every day. When she acknowledged all this she was tempted to ask herself whether she ought not to accept the man,--if not for her own sake at least for that of the family.

That same evening her father called her into the office after the clerks were gone and spoke to her thus. "Your mamma is very unhappy, my dear," he said.

"I'm afraid I have made everybody unhappy by wanting to go to Cheltenham."

"It is not only that. That is reasonable enough and you ought to go.

Mamma would say nothing more about that,--if you would make up your mind to one thing."

"What thing, papa?" Of course she knew very well what the thing was.

"It is time for you to think of settling in life, Mary. I never would put it into a girl's head that she ought to worry herself about getting a husband unless the opportunity seemed to come in her way.

Young women should be quiet and wait till they're sought after. But here is a young man seeking you whom we all like and approve. A good house is a very good thing when it's fairly come by."

"Yes, papa."

"And so is a full house. A girl shouldn't run after money, but plenty is a great comfort in this world when it can be had without blushing for."

"Yes, papa."

"And so is an honest man's love. I don't like to see any girl wearying after some fellow to be always fal-lalling with her. A good girl will be able to be happy and contented without that. But a lone life is a poor life, and a good husband is about the best blessing that a young woman can have." To this proposition Mary perhaps agreed in her own mind but she gave no spoken a.s.sent. "Now this young man that is wanting to marry you has got all these things, and as far as I can judge with my experience in the world, is as likely to make a good husband as any one I know." He paused for an answer but Mary could only lean close upon his arm and be silent. "Have you anything to say about it, my dear? You see it has been going on now a long time, and of course he'll look to have it decided." But still she could say nothing. "Well, now;--he has been with me to-day."

"Mr. Twentyman?"

"Yes,--Mr. Twentyman. He knows you're going to Cheltenham and of course he has nothing to say against that. No young man such as he would be sorry that his sweetheart should be entertained by such a lady as Lady Ushant. But he says that he wants to have an answer before you go."