so far,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, amused, but anxious.

'Yours is the lady's side. My orders are precise. Oliver has talked
it over with Mr. Ponsonby, and finds the connexion would be agreeable;
so he issues a decree that his nephew, Roland Dynevor--(poor Jem--he
would not know himself!)--should enter on no profession, but forthwith
pay his addresses to Miss Ponsonby, since he will shortly be in a
position befitting the heir of our family!'

'You leave Prince Roland in happy ignorance,' said Mrs. Ponsonby,
blushing a little.

'Certainly--or he would fly off like a sky-rocket at the first symptom
of the princess.'

'Then I think we need not alter our plans. All that Mary's father
tells me is, that he does not intend to return home as yet, though his
successor is appointed, since he is much occupied by this new
partnership with Oliver, and expects that the investment will be
successful. He quite approves of our living at the Terrace, especially
as he thinks I ought to be informed that Oliver has declared his
intentions with regard to his nephew, and so if anything should arise
between the young people, I am not to discourage it.'

'Mary is in request,' said Mrs. Frost, slyly, and as she met Mrs.
Ponsonby's eyes full of uneasy inquiry. 'You don't mean that you have
not observed at least his elder lordship's most decided courtship?
Don't be too innocent, my dear.'

'Pray don't say so, Aunt Kitty, or you will make me uncomfortable in
staying here. If the like ever crossed his mind, he must perceive that
the two are just what we were together ourselves.'

'That might make him wish it the more,' Aunt Catharine had almost said,
but she restrained it halfway, and said, 'Louis is hardly come to the
time of life for a grande passion.'

'True. He is wonderfully young, and Mary not only seems much older,
but is by no means the girl to attract a mere youth. I rather suspect
she will have no courtship but from the elders.'

'In spite of her opportunities. What would some mammas--Lord
Ormersfield's bugbear, for instance, Lady Conway--give for such a
chance! Three months of a lame young Lord, and such a lame young Lord
as my Louis!'

'I might have feared,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, 'if Mary were not so
perfectly simple. Aunt Melicent managed to abstract all romance, and I
never regretted it so little. She has looked after him merely because
it came in her way as a form of kindness, and is too much his governess
for anythi