"Yes," said Thisbe with a snort.

"What is it?"

"I told you before. He's so horrid handsome."

"Why, you dear, prejudiced, silly old thing!" cried Millicent, whose eyes were sparkling, and cheeks flushed.

"I don't care if I am. I don't like handsome men: they're good for nowt."

"Why, Thisbe!"

"I don't care, they arn't; my soldier fellow was that handsome it made you feel wicked, you were so puffed out with pride."

"And so you were in love once, Thisbe?"

"Why, of course I was. Think I'm made o' stone, miss? Enough to make any poor girl be in love when a handsome fellow like that, with moustache-i-ohs, and shiny eyes, and larnseer uniform making him look like a blue robin redbreast, came and talked as he did to a silly young goose such as I was then. I couldn't help it. Why, the way his clothes fitted him was enough to win any girl's heart--him with such a beautiful figure too! He looked as if he couldn't be got out of 'em wi'out unpicking."

"Think of our Thisbe falling in love with a soldier!" cried Millicent, laughing, for there was a wild feeling of joy in her heart that was intoxicating, and made her eyes flash with excitement.

"Ah, it's very funny, isn't it?" said Thisbe, with a vicious shake of her ap.r.o.n. "But it's true. Handsome as handsome he was, and talked so good that he set me thinking always about how nice I must be. Stuffed me out wi' pride, and what did he do then?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Thisbe."

"Borrered three pun seven and sixpence of my savings, and took my watch, as I bought at Horncastle fair, to be reggilated, and next time I see my gentleman he was walking out wi' Dixon's cook. Handsome is as handsome does, Miss Milly, so you take warning by me."

"There, I will not be cross with you, Thisbe," said Millicent, smiling.

"I know you mean well."

"And you'll send an answer to Mr Bayle, miss?"

"There is no answer required, Thisbe," said Millicent gravely.

"And Mr Hallam, miss?"

"Thisbe," said Millicent gravely, "I want you always to be our old faithful friend as well as servant, but--"

She held up a warning finger, and was silent. Thisbe's lips parted to say a few angry words; but she flounced round, and made the door speak for her in a sharp bang, after which she rushed upstairs with the intent of having a furious encounter with a bed; but she changed her mind, and on reaching her own room, sat down, put her ap.r.o.n to her eyes, and had what she called "a good cry."

"Poor Miss Milly!" she sobbed at last; "she's just about as blind as I was, and she'll only find it out when it's too late."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

ANOTHER EVENING AT THE DOCTOR'S.

"But--but I don't like it, my dear," said Mrs Luttrell, wiping her eyes, and looking up at the doctor, as he stood rubbing his hands softly, to get rid of the harshness produced by freshly-dug earth used for potting.

"Neither do I," said the doctor calmly.

"But why should she choose him of all men?" sighed Mrs Luttrell. "I never thought Millicent the girl to be taken by a man only for his handsome face. I was not when I was young!"

"Which is saying that I was precious ugly, eh?"

"Indeed you were the handsomest man in Castor!" cried Mrs Luttrell proudly; "but you were the cleverest too, and--dear, dear!--what a little while ago it seems!"

"Gently, gently, old lady!" said the doctor, tenderly kissing the wrinkled forehead that was raised towards him. "Well, heaven's blessing be upon her, my dear, and may her love be as evergreen as ours."

Mrs Luttrell rose and laid her head upon his shoulder, and stood there, with a happy, peaceful look upon her pleasant face, although it was still wet with tears.

"That's what I'm afraid of," she sighed; "and it would be so sad."

"Ah, wife!" said the doctor, walking slowly up and down the room, with his arm about Mrs Luttrell's waist, "it's one of Nature's mysteries.

We can't rule these things. Look at Milly. Some girls begin love-making at seventeen, ah, and before! and here she went calmly on to four-and-twenty untouched, and finding her pleasure in her books and music, and home-life."

"As good and affectionate a girl as ever breathed!" cried Mrs Luttrell.

"Yes, my dear; and then comes the man, and he has but to hold up his finger and say `Come,' and it is done."

"But she might have had Sir Gordon, and he is rich, and then she would have been Lady Bourne!"

"He was too old, my dear, too old. She looked upon him like a child would look up to her father."

"Well, then, Mr Bayle, the best of men, I'm sure; and he is well off too."

"Too young, old lady, too young. I've watched them together hundreds of times. Milly always petted and patronised him, and treated him as if he were a younger brother, of whom she was very fond."

"Heigho! Oh dear me!" sighed Mrs Luttrell. "But I don't like him-- this Mr Hallam. I never thought when Millicent was a baby that she would ever enter into an engagement like this. Can't we break it off?"

The doctor shook his head. "I don't like it, mother. Hallam is the last man I should have chosen for her; but we must make the best of it.

He has won her; and she is not a child, but a calm, thoughtful woman."

"Yes, that's the worst of it," sighed Mrs Luttrell; "she is so thoughtful and calm and dignified, that I never can look upon her now as my little girl. I always seem to be talking to a superior woman, whose judgment I must respect. But this is very sad!"

"There, there! we must not treat it like that, old lady. Perhaps we have grown to be old and prejudiced. I own I have."

"Oh, no, no, my dear!"

"Yes, but I have. As soon as this seemed to be a certainty I began to try and find a hole in the fellow's coat."

"In Mr Hallam's coat, love? Oh, you wouldn't find that."

"No," said the doctor dryly, as he smiled down in the gentle old face, "not one. There, there! you must let it go! Now then, old lady, you must smile and look happy, here's Milly coming down."

Mrs Luttrell shook her head, and her wistful look seemed to say that she would never feel happy again; but as Millicent entered, in plain white satin, cut in the high-waisted, tight fashion of the period, and with a necklet of pearls for her only ornament, a look of pride and pleasure came into the mother's face, and she darted a glance at her husband, which he caught and interpreted, "I will think only of her."

"Oh, Milly!" she cried, "that necklace! what lovely pearls!"

"Robert's present, dear. I was to wear them to-night. Are they not lovely?"

"Almost as lovely as their setting," said the doctor to himself, as he kissed his child tenderly. "Why, Milly," he said aloud, "you look as happy as a bird!"