“Arthur,” said Alys, suddenly, but in a low voice, when, later in the evening, she had got Captain Beverley to herself in a corner of the drawing-room – “Arthur, do you know what I had set my heart on for the Brocklehurst ball.”
“What sort of dress, do you mean?” said her cousin. “No, I certainly do not know, and I am perfectly sure I couldn’t possibly guess. So you had better tell me.”
“I don’t mean a
dress
,” said Alys, contemptuously, “I meant a
plan
.”
Captain Beverley did not at once answer.
“A
plan
, I say, Arthur, don’t you hear?” repeated Alys, impatiently.
“I beg your pardon,” exclaimed Arthur, rallying his attention. “A plan to show me, did you say? For my new farm-house? It is very good of you to trouble about it.”
“Oh! Arthur, how provoking you are! What is the matter with you?” exclaimed Alys. “Of course it wasn’t that sort of plan I was talking of. It was a plan of mine – one that I had made in my head, don’t you understand? It was about the Brocklehurst ball. I wanted to coax Laurence into letting me call on the Westerns, Arthur, the Westerns at Hathercourt, you know, and then I would have got him to let me ask them – the girls, of course, I mean – to come to stay at Romary for two or three days, and go to the ball with us. Wouldn’t it have been nice, Arthur? It would have been a treat for them, as the children say. They are such pretty, nice girls, and I am sure they don’t have many ‘treats’.”
She looked up in Arthur’s face with eager, sparkling eyes, and this time she had no need to recall his attention. His eyes were sparkling too, his colour rose, his voice even seemed to her to shake a little with suppressed excitement as he replied to her:
“Alys, you are the best and nicest girl in the world. It was just like you, you dear good child, to think of such a thing, and I thank you – I always shall thank you for it with all my heart. I felt sure,” he went on, more quietly – “I felt sure I should find I might count upon you, and now I know it. I have a great deal to tell you, Alys, and I – ”
But at this moment Mr Cheviott’s voice was heard.
“Alys,” he was saying, “are you not going to play a little? What mischief are Arthur and you concocting over there?”
He came towards them as he spoke. Captain Beverley had laid his hand on Alys’s in his eagerness, his face was flushed, his whole manner and air might easily have been mistaken for those of an accepted or would-be lover, and the start with which he threw himself back on his own chair as his cousin approached, increased the apparent awkwardness of the situation. But Alys, though her cheeks were rosier, her eyes brighter than their wont, answered quietly and without confusion:
“We are not concocting mischief, Laurence,” she said; “we are too wise and sensible for anything of the kind, as you might know by this time. We’ll have another talk about our
plans
to-morrow, Arthur. Come and sing something now to please aunt, as she made an effort to do you honour by coming down to dinner.”
And the
tête-à-tête
between the cousins was not renewed that evening, nor, as Alys had proposed, “to-morrow,” for Arthur did not make his appearance at Miss Winstanley’s the next day at all. Mr Cheviott saw him and went with him to the architect’s, and brought back word that he was over head and ears in model pig-sties and shippons.
“And in farm-houses too,” he said. “I think it very foolish of him to lay out money on doing much to the house itself. It is quite good enough as it is for the sort of bailiff he should get.”
“Oh, then, he does not intend to live at Hathercourt Edge himself,” remarked Miss Winstanley.
Mr Cheviott turned upon her rather sharply.
“Live there himself!” he exclaimed, “of course not. What could have put such an idea in your head, my dear aunt? At the most, all the income he can possibly hope to make out of Hathercourt will be within three hundred a year, and he has quite three thousand a year independent of that; he could have no possible motive for settling at Hathercourt.”
“But is there not some condition attached to Arthur’s fortune?” said Miss Winstanley, vaguely. “I remember something about it, and he said the other day that he would not be of age for two years.”
“No; by his father’s will he is not to be considered of age till he is twenty-seven.”
“Then I should say it would be a very good thing for him to settle down at Hathercourt for two years and learn farming before he has to manage Lydon for himself,” said Alys.
“
Nonsense
, Alys,” said her brother, severely. “What can you possibly know about anything of the kind?”
But Alys did not appear snubbed.
“I rather suspect Arthur has some plan of the kind in his head, whether Laurence thinks it nonsense or not,” she remarked to her aunt, when they were by themselves in the drawing-room. “By-the-bye, aunt, what did you mean about there being some sort of condition attached to Arthur’s getting his property? I never heard of it.”
“Oh, I don’t know, my dear. I dare say I have got hold of the wrong end of the story – I very often do,” said Miss Winstanley, nervously, for something in Mr Cheviott’s manner had made her suspect she was trenching on forbidden ground. “And besides, if you have never been told anything about it, it shows that, if there is anything to hear, Laurence did not wish you to hear it.”
“Laurence forgets sometimes that I am no longer a child,” retorted Alys, drawing herself up. “However, it doesn’t matter. If Arthur looks upon me as a sister, it is best I should hear all about his affairs from himself. But, Aunt Fanny,” she continued, in a softer tone, “was there not something unhappy about Arthur’s parents? Laurence has alluded to it sometimes before me, and I have often wondered what it was.”
“It was just everything,” replied Miss Winstanley, sadly, “the marriage was a most foolish one. They were utterly unsuited to each other, and it was just misery from beginning to end.”
“Was Arthur’s mother not a lady?” asked Alys.
“Oh, yes; you could not have called her unladylike,” replied Miss Winstanley. “It was not that – she married Mr Beverley without any affection for him, entirely for the sake of his position. She was older than he, and her people were very poor, and scheming, I suppose, and he was infatuated.”
“And then he found out what a mistake he had made?”
“Oh, it was most miserable. And Edward, Arthur’s father, you know, was no one to make the best of such a state of things. He was always so hot-headed and impulsive, and he had offended all his friends by his marriage. Your mother, Alys, poor dear, was the only one who stood by him. And he was grateful to her; yes, he certainly was.”
“But she died,” said Alys. “How sad it all sounds!”
“Yes, she died, but Edward did not long survive her. He was never a strong man, and he was utterly disappointed and broken down. The last time I saw him, Alys, was with you in his arms – a tiny trot you were – and Arthur playing about. Poor Edward was trying to see some likeness to your mother in you, and he was impressing upon Arthur that he must take care of you, and be very good to you always.”
“And so he has been – always,” replied Alys. “Next to Laurence, aunt, I do not think there is any one in the world I care for more than for Arthur. I would do anything for him,
anything
, just as I would for Laurence.”
“What are you saying about me, eh, Alys?” said Mr Cheviott, catching her last words as he entered the room.
“No harm,” said Alys. “We have not been speaking about you at all till just this minute. I was asking Aunt Fanny about Arthur’s father and mother, and why they did not get on happily together.”
An expression of surprise and some annoyance crossed Mr Cheviott’s face.
“It is not a pleasant subject,” he said, coldly.
“I dare say not,” said Alys, fearlessly, “but one must come across unpleasant subjects sometimes in life. And, I think, Laurence, you forget now and then that I am no longer a child. All the same you needn’t look daggers at poor aunt. She hasn’t told me anything, hardly – and it is natural I should wish to hear; for whatever concerns Arthur must interest me.”
Mr Cheviott’s brow relaxed.
“I did not mean ‘to look daggers,’ as you say, at Aunt Fanny or you either. Of course it is natural, and some day I shall probably tell you more about it,” he said, kindly. “It’s a queer thing,” he added, with apparent irrelevance, almost as if speaking to himself, “that people who make mistakes in life are punished more severely than actually unprincipled people. – I have written to Mrs Cleave, accepting her invitation,” he continued, with a sudden change of tone. “Don’t you want some new dresses, Alys? You had not much opportunity for shopping in Paris, after all, you know.”
“But I made the best use of what I had. I am very well stocked for the present. If I remember anything I want I’ll get Arthur to go shopping with me to-morrow.”
To-morrow came and went, and no Arthur made his appearance. Nor was anything seen of him the next day, or the day after that either. It was not till the Tuesday following that he called again, two days only before that fixed for their journey home.
“We thought you had gone back to Hathercourt without waiting for us,” said Mr Cheviott, eyeing his cousin somewhat curiously as he spoke. But Alys, whom Arthur’s absence had hurt and disappointed more than she would have cared to confess, said nothing; only she, too, looked at him, and so looking, it seemed to her that his colour changed a little, and forthwith her indignation melted away, to be replaced by anxiety and concern. And these feelings were not decreased by his manner of excusing himself.
“I was afraid you would be thinking me very rude,” he said, with a sort of nervous deprecation new to him, “but I have really been very busy.”
“Then I don’t think being very busy can agree with you,” remarked Mr Cheviott, “you look thoroughly done up.”
“
Have
you been ill, Arthur?” said Alys, kindly.
Arthur started. “Ill; oh dear, no,” he exclaimed; “never was better in my life;” but he smiled at Alys in his old way as he spoke, and seemed grateful for her cordiality.
But Alys was not satisfied about him. She determined to have “a good talk” with him, and did her best to make an opportunity for it; but somehow the opportunity never came. Neither that day nor the next, nor the day on which they all travelled down to Withenden together could she succeed in executing her intention. And at last it suddenly dawned upon her that Arthur was purposely avoiding ever being alone with her, and, hurt and perplexed, she determined to take his hint, and interfere no more in his affairs. Girl-like, she went at once to the extreme, till, in his turn, Captain Beverley was wounded by the marked change in her behaviour.
“What have I done to offend you, Alys?” he asked, one or two mornings after their arrival at Romary, when Miss Cheviott and he happened to be by themselves in the breakfast-room before the others had made their appearance.
“Nothing,” said Alys; “you have done nothing, only you seem to have changed to me, Arthur. I used to think you looked upon me quite as a sister, and now when I see you have something on your mind, something you should be glad to consult a sister about – and you did tell me a little, you know, Arthur, that evening in town – you repel my sympathy, and tell me, your
sister
, Arthur, nothing.”
She looked at him reproachfully, but his answer was scarcely what she had expected.
“How I wish you
were
my sister, Alys,” was all he said.
All, perhaps, that he had time to say, for just then Mr Cheviott’s step was heard in the hall.
“That would not make it any better,” said Alys, with a sigh, in a low voice; “if I were your sister I could not care for you more, and you don’t care for me now.”
“It isn’t that,” said Arthur, hastily. “I do care for you just the same as ever, Alys, but – ”
He stopped abruptly as his cousin came in.
Chapter Nine
“What Made the Ball so Fine?”
“But come; our dance, I pray:
She dances featly.”
A Winter’s Tale.
The ball at Brocklehurst was this year anticipated with more than ordinary interest. It was to be an unusually good one, said the local authorities; all the “best” houses in the neighbourhood were to be filled for it; the regiment at the nearest garrison town was a deservedly popular one, and at least three recognised beauties were expected to be present.
All these facts were discussed with eagerness by the young people round about Brocklehurst, to whom a ball of any kind was an event, to whom this special ball was
the
event of the year. And in few family circles was it more talked about than in the isolated Rectory at Hathercourt, by few girls was it looked forward to with more anticipation of enjoyment than by the Western sisters. Yet it was not the first, nor the second, nor, in the case of Lilias, the third Brocklehurst ball even, at which they had “assisted,” and only a few weeks previous Miss Western had been seriously talking of declining for the future to take part in the great annual festivity. And here she was now, the week before, as interested in the question of the pretty fresh dresses, which, by an extra turn or two of the screw of economy, the mother had managed to provide for her girls, as if she were again a
débutante
of seventeen; and, more wonderful still, the excitement had proved infectious, for Mary, sober-minded Mary, was full of it too. She could think of little else than what Lilias was to wear, how Lilias was to look – but for Lilias, the consideration of what
Mary
was to wear, how
Mary
was to look, would have been very summarily dismissed.
It is not easy, even with the most unselfish and “managing” of mothers, with the most – theoretically, at least – indulgent of fathers; with two pair of fairly clever hands, and two or three numbers of the latest fashion books, it is not
easy
, out of what a girl like Alys Cheviott would have thought a not extravagant price for a garden-hat, or a new parasol, to devise for one’s self a ball-dress, in which to appear with credit to one’s self and one’s belongings, on such an occasion as a Brocklehurst ball. And at first the difficulties had appeared so insuperable that Mary had proposed that the whole of the funds should be appropriated to the purchase of a dress for Lilias only.
“You could get one really handsome dress – handsome of its kind, that is to say – for what will only provide two barely wearable ones,” she said, appealingly, “and, Lilias, you should be nicely dressed for once.”
“And you?” said Lilias, aghast.
Mary blushed, and stumbled over a proposal that she should wear some mythical attire which “really might be made to look decent,” out of the remains of the tarletans which had already done good duty on two, if not three previous occasions, “or,” she added, still more timidly, “if you don’t think I
could
go in that, Lilias, I don’t see why I should go at all this time. You know my pleasure, even selfishly speaking, would be far greater if you alone were to go,
comfortably
, than if we both went, feeling half ashamed of our clothes! It would spoil the enjoyment – there is no use denying it, however weak-minded it sounds to say so.”
“Of course it would,” said Lilias, promptly. “I am not at all ashamed of saying so. But I don’t despair yet, Mary – only listen to me. I will not go without you – do you hear, child? – I
won’t
go without you, and we shall be dressed exactly alike. Your dress must be precisely and exactly the same as mine, or I won’t go. There, now you know my decision, and you know that you’ll have to give in.”
She sat down as she spoke on the side of the bed in her room, on which was displayed such modest finery as was in their possession, and in presence of which the weighty discussion was taking place – she sat down on the side of the little bed, and looked Mary resolutely in the face.
“Mary,” she repeated, “you know you will have to give in.”
And Mary gave in on the spot.
That had been three weeks ago. Now it was within two or three days of the ball. How they had managed it, I cannot tell; what good fairy had helped them, I cannot say – none, I suspect, but their own light hearts and youthful energy, and love for each other – but Lilias’s prophesy had proved correct. The two dresses were ready, simple, but not shabby, perfectly suited to their wearers. “A dress,” thought Lilias, “which must make every one see how really pretty Mary is.”
“A dress,” thought Mary, “which Captain Beverley need not be afraid of his grand friends criticising, if, as they must, they notice him dancing with Lilias.”
They were in the midst of their admiration of the successful achievement, when there came an interruption – a noisy knock at the door, and Josey’s noisy voice.
“Lilias! Mary! let me in!” she exclaimed. “Mamma says you are to come down at once. Captain Beverley’s here; he has come back from London, and has walked over all the way from Romary. Come quick!”
Mary turned to Lilias. Lilias had grown scarlet.
“I don’t know that I shall go down,” she said. “I must put away all these things, and I wanted you to help me to fold these dresses, Mary. But mother will be vexed if one of us does not go. Josey, send Alexa up to help me – tell mother Mary is just coming, but that I am very busy.”
“I’ll tell Captain Beverley so,” said Josephine, maliciously.
Mary said nothing, but set to work at folding the dresses, and Lilias assisting her, they were all carefully disposed of before Alexa made her appearance.
“Now, Lilias, be sensible, and come down with me,” said the younger sister. “He has walked all the way from Romary, you hear, and I think its very nice of him. He hardly expected to be able to see us again before the ball, and it looks like affectation not to give him a cordial reception.”
But still Lilias hesitated.
“It isn’t affectation,” she said at last, “but – Mary,” she went on, suddenly breaking off her sentence, “I think it is horrid to talk of such things before there is actually anything to talk of, but to you I don’t mind. I cannot understand Captain Beverley quite; that is why I said I was not sure that I should go down. I don’t understand why – why he has never yet said anything definite. He has been on the verge of it a dozen times at least, and then he has seemed to hesitate.”
Mary looked at her sister anxiously.
“Perhaps he is not sure of
you
,” she said. “You know, Lilias, what a way you have of turning things into jest very often.”
Lilias shook her head. “No,” she said, “it isn’t that. He
knows
,” she hesitated, and again her fair face grew rosy, “he
knows
I like him. No, it is as if there were, some difficulty on his side – his friends perhaps.”
“It can’t be that,” said Mary, decidedly. “He has no parents, no very near friends. He must be free to act for himself, Lilias. I think too highly of him to doubt it, for it has been all so entirely his own doing – from the very first – and if he were in any way not free, it would have been shameful;” her face darkened, and a look came into her eyes which told that Mary Western would not be one to stand by silently and see another wronged, whatever powers of endurance she might have on her own account. But it cleared off again quickly, and she smiled at her sister re-assuringly.
“I am fanciful where you are concerned, Lilias,” she said. “There is no reason for misgiving, I feel sure. I think Captain Beverley is good and true, and it will all be right. Come down-stairs now – mother will not like our leaving her so long alone.”
Lilias made no further objection, and they went down together to the drawing-room, where it would be difficult to say which of the two, Mrs Western or Captain Beverley, was the more eagerly expecting them.
It was only three or four days since the young man had been at the Rectory, for the period of his mysterious absence from Miss Winstanley’s house had really, little as the Cheviotts suspected it, been spent at Hathercourt.
But during those three or four days he had been to town and back again, and now he had left the Edge and taken up his quarters at Romary. A great deal seemed to have happened in these few days, and, in her secret heart, Lilias Western had looked forward to them as to a sort of crisis.
“He will, probably, have been talking over things with his cousin, Mr Cheviott,” she said to herself, “and, naturally, he wishes to have some points settled before speaking to papa or me.”
And it was, therefore, with a sort of expectancy, half hope, half timidity, that added an indefinable charm to her whole bearing and expression, that Lilias met her all but declared lover this afternoon. He felt that she was more attractive than ever, “she grows lovelier every time I see her,” he said to himself, with a sigh, and then tried to forget that he had anything to sigh about, and gave himself up to the pleasure of being again beside her – to the consciousness that his presence was not distasteful to her, and smothered all misgivings with a vague, boyish confidence that, somehow or other, things would all come right in the end.
There could be no doubt about it – he was more devoted than ever – what nineteenth century
preux chevalier
could give greater proof of his devotion than a ten miles’ walk on a dull December day, for the sake of an hour’s enjoyment of his lady-love’s company, and a cup of tea from her fair hands? Yet when their guest rose to go – he had arranged, he told them, for a dog-cart from Romary to meet him at the Edge Farm – Lilias was conscious of a chill of disappointment. True, he had not been alone with her, but had he sought any opportunity of being so? And Mr Western was at home, sitting reading, as usual, in his study; nothing could have been more easily managed than an interview with him, had Captain Beverley wished it. But a word or two that passed, as he was saying good-bye, again put her but half-acknowledged misgivings to flight.
“Then when shall I see you again?” he said, as he held her hand in his for an instant, unobserved in the little bustle of taking leave.
Lilias glanced round hastily; her mother and Mary were hardly within hearing.
“I really cannot say,” she replied, somewhat coldly, drawing her hand away as she spoke. “I
suppose
Mary and I will go to the ball on Thursday, with Mrs Greville, but – ”
“Suppose,” repeated Captain Beverley, hastily interrupting her. “Are not you
sure
of going? I should not have promised to go had I not thought you were certain to be there.”
“Are you going to the ball from Romary?” asked Mary, coming up to where they were standing, before Lilias had time to reply.
“I don’t know exactly,” replied Captain Beverley. “I am not sure what I shall do.”
Mary looked up in surprise, and Lilias saw the look.
“Mary and I will have a very long drive,” she said. “You know we are going with Mrs Greville from Uxley.”
Captain Beverley’s face cleared.
“I shall get there somehow,” he said, brightly, “and you must not forget the dances you have promised me, Miss Western.” And then he said good-bye again, and really took his departure. Lilias’s good spirits did not desert her through the evening, and Mary was glad to see it, and tried to banish the misgivings that had been left in her own mind by her conversation with her sister. But she did not succeed in doing so quite effectually.
“I wonder,” she said to herself – “I wonder why Captain Beverley did not order the dog-cart to come
here
to meet him. And I wonder, too, why he says so little about the Cheviotts. Under the circumstances, it would be only natural that we should know something of them – he has so often said Miss Cheviott was just like a sister to him.”
“Miss Cheviott is to be at the ball, I suppose,” she said to Lilias the next day. “Does she count as one of the three beauties we heard about, do you think?”
“I suppose so,” said Lilias, rather shortly.
“Did Captain Beverley not say anything about her going?” persisted Mary.
Lilias turned round sharply.
“You heard all he said,” she exclaimed. “He was speaking to you quite as much as to me. I don’t think he mentioned the Cheviotts at all, and I don’t care to hear about them. It is not as if they were Captain Beverley’s brother and sister.”
“I didn’t mean to vex you, Lilias,” said Mary, and then the subject dropped.
Mrs Greville was a very good sort of person to be a
chaperon
. She was her husband’s second wife, a good many years his junior, and she had no daughters of her own. She was pretty well off, but owing to Mr Greville’s delicate health, her allowance of amusement was, even for a clergyman’s wife, moderate in the extreme, and she had very little occupation of any kind; there were no poor people in the very well-to-do parish of Uxley, and her two boys were at school. She liked chaperoning the Western girls, Lilias especially, as her beauty was sure of receiving attention, and both she and Mary were quickly grateful for a little kindness, unexacting, and ready to be pleased. So, all things considered, she looked forward to the Brocklehurst ball with scarcely less eagerness then the sisters themselves.
“I am so pleased that you have got such pretty dresses this year,” said Mrs Greville, when she and her charges found themselves fairly launched on the eventful evening. She had chartered the roomiest of the Withenden flys, as much less damaging to their attire during a seven miles’ drive than her own little pill-box, in which, carefully wrapped in innumerable mufflers and overcoats, Mr Greville followed meekly behind. “Yes, I am particularly pleased you have got such pretty dresses, for I quite think it is going to be a very brilliant ball. You have heard that there are to be three beauties —
noted
beauties, have you not? There’s young Mrs Heron-Wyvern, the bride, you know; she is of Spanish origin; her father was a General Monte something or other, and they say she is lovely; and Sir Thomas Fforde’s niece, Miss – oh, I always forget names, but she is very pretty – handsome, rather – she is not so very young; and then there is Miss Cheviott of Romary. I have not seen her since she was quite a little girl, but she was pretty then, even.”
“Are the Cheviotts at Romary now?” asked Mary, when she got a chance of speaking.
“Oh, yes, I believe so, and very much liked, I hear,” replied Mrs Greville. “There was an impression that Mr Cheviott was stiff and ‘stuck up,’ but I believe it’s not at all the case when you know him. I hear Romary is likely to be one of the pleasantest houses in the county. I dare say Miss Cheviott will be making some grand match before long, though I
have
heard – ”
But just at this moment the sudden rattle of the wheels upon the unmistakable cobble stones of Brocklehurst High Street distracted Mrs Greville’s attention.
“Here we are, I declare!” she exclaimed, “How quickly we seem to have come! I do hope the brougham is close behind, for Mr Greville has all the tickets;” and, in the bustle that ensued, what she had heard as to Miss Cheviott’s prospects or intentions was never revealed.
They were very early. Mrs Greville liked to be early, “to see all the people come in.” Hitherto, on such occasions, this weakness of her friend had been a sore trial to Lilias, but this year, for reasons of her own, she had made no objections to it, and had not, as formerly, exhausted her energies in search of some cleverly-laid scheme for making Mrs Greville late in spite of herself. And if Lilias was content, it never occurred to Mary to be anything else; so they all sat down together “in a nice corner out of the draught,” and listened to the discordant preliminaries of the band, and watched the gradually filling of the bare, chilly rooms, two hearts among the four caring for little but the confidently looked-for approach of a tall, manly figure, with a bright fair face, to claim his partner for the first two dances.
But time wore on; the first quadrille was a thing of the past, and still Lilias and Mary sat decorously beside their
chaperon
, each thinking to herself that “surely the Romary party was very late.” But when the second dance, a Waltt, had also come to an end, Lilias’s air changed; a proud flush of colour overspread her cheeks, and when Frank Bury, a Withenden curate of rather unclerical tastes, but decided in his admiration for Miss Western, begged for “the honour of the third dance,” she accepted at once – so much more amiably, and with so much sweeter smiles than usual, that the poor young man grew crimson with astonishment and delight. Mary longed, yet dared not, to interfere; there was “a look” in Lilias’s face as she walked away on Frank Bury’s arm that made Mary’s heart burn with anxiety for the possible issues of this evening.
“Oh,” said she, to herself, “if he were to come just now and think she would not wait for him!”
And she sat still in fear and trembling, longing for, yet dreading Captain Beverley’s appearance.
The dance was not half over when there came a little bustle at the principal door-way. Those nearest it stood back, and even through the music one discerned a slight hush of expectancy. Some new-comers were at hand; new-comers, too, of evident importance. Mrs Greville’s ears and eyes were equally wide awake.
“The Cleavelands party,” she whispered to Mary, “and I hear all the three beauties come with them! The Heron-Wyverns are staying there, and so are the Ffordes, and the Cheviotts. It looks as if it had been arranged on purpose to make a sensation.”
Mary would have cared little but for one thought. “Then there has been no party at Romary?” she asked.
“I suppose not – evidently not, for see, there is Mr Cheviott coming into the room with Sir Thomas’s niece on his arm – what a handsome couple! but he has a forbidding expression. Then that must be the bride, I suppose – oh, yes, look, Mary, she is going to dance with her husband, young Heron-Wyvern – he has reddish hair – and how, I wonder what has become of the third beauty, Miss Cheviott.”
But at this moment an acquaintance of Mrs Greville happening to take the vacant seat on her other side, her attention was distracted, and Mary’s eyes were left free to roam in search of one familiar figure. Her heart was beating fast with excitement and anxiety, her sight surely was growing