Still, at twenty-one she was so much what she had been at seventeen--so
staid, sensible, and practical, that Miss Ponsonby gladly pronounced
her not in the least spoilt.

Fain would her aunt have kept both her and her mother as her guests;
but Mrs. Ponsonby had permission to choose whatever residence best
suited her, and felt that Bryanston-square and Miss Ponsonby would be
fatal to her harassed spirits. She yearned after the home and
companions of her youth, and Miss Ponsonby could only look severe, talk
of London doctors, and take Mary aside to warn her against temptations
from fashionable people.

Mary had been looking for the fashionable people ever since, and the
first sign of them she had seen, was the air and figure of her cousin
Fitzjocelyn. Probably good Aunt Melicent would distrust him; and yet
his odd startling talk, and the arch look of mischief in the corners of
his mouth and eyes, had so much likeness to the little Louis of old
times, that she could not look on him as a stranger nor as a formidable
being; but was always recurring to the almost monitorial sense of
protection, with which she formerly used to regard him, when she shared
his nursery.

Her mother had cultivated her love for Ormersfield, and she was charmed
by her visits to old haunts, well remembering everything. She gladly
recognised the little low-browed church, the dumpy tower, and
grave-yard rising so high that it seemed to intend to bury the church
itself, and permitted many a view, through the lattices, of the seats,
and the Fitzjocelyn hatchments and monuments.

She lingered after church on Sunday afternoon with Mrs. Frost to look
at Lady Fitzjocelyn's monument. It was in the chancel, a recumbent
figure in white marble, as if newly fallen asleep, and with the lovely
features chiselled from a cast taken after death had fixed and ennobled
their beauty.

'It is just like Louis's profile!' said Mrs. Frost, as they came out.

'Well,' said Louis, who was nearer than she was aware, 'I hope at least
no one will make me the occasion of a lion when I am dead.'

'It is very beautiful,' said Mary.

'May be so; but the sentiment is destroyed by its having been six
months in the Royal Academy, number 16,136, and by seeing it down among
the excursions in the Northwold Guide.'

'Louis, my dear, you should not be satirical on this,' said Mrs. Frost.

'I never meant it,' said Louis, 'but I never could love that monument.
It used to oppress