lly. The rectory and the wedding dress,
which had lingered so regretfully in her thoughts since her last sight
of Catherine, sank out of them altogether.

'She has been everything in the world to us, Mr. Elsmere.'

'I know she has,' he said simply. 'She shall be everything in the world
to you still. I have had hard work to persuade her. There will be no
chance for me if you don't help me.'

Another breathless pause. Then Mrs. Leyburn timidly drew him to her, and
he stooped his tall head and kissed her like a son.

'Oh, I must go to Catherine!' she said, hurrying away, her pretty
withered cheeks wet with tears.

Then the girls threw themselves on Elsmere. The talk was all animation
and excitement for the moment, not a tragic touch in it. It was as well
perhaps that Catherine was not there to hear!

'I give you fair warning,' said Rose, as she bade him good-night, 'that
I don't know how to behave to a brother. And I am equally sure that Mrs.
Thornburgh doesn't know how to behave to a _fiance_.'

Robert threw up his arms in mock terror at the name, and departed.

'We are abandoned,' cried Rose, flinging herself into the chair
again--then with a little flash of half irresolute wickedness--'and we
are free! Oh, I hope she will be happy!'

And she caught Agnes wildly round the neck as though she would drown her
first words in her last.

'Madcap!' cried Agnes, struggling. 'Leave me at least a little breath to
wish Catherine joy!'

And they both fled upstairs.

There was indeed no prouder woman in the three kingdoms than Mrs.
Thornburgh that night. After all the agitation downstairs she could not
persuade herself to go to bed. She first knocked up Sarah and
communicated the news; then she sat down before a pier-glass in her own
room studying the person who had found Catherine Leyburn a husband.

'My doing from beginning to end,' she cried with a triumph beyond words.
'William has had _nothing_ to do with it. Robert has had scarcely as
much. And to think how little I dreamt of it when I began! Well, to be
sure, no one could have _planned_ marrying those two. There's no one but
Providence could have foreseen it--they're so different. And after all
it's _done_. Now then, whom shall I have next year?'

BOOK II

SURREY

CHAPTER XI

Farewell to the mountains!

The scene in which the next act of this unpretending history is to run
its course is of a very different kind. In place of the rugged north