love with her." Then Mrs Baggett, with the
sense of the audacity of what she had said, looked him full in the
face and violently shook her head.

"Now go in," he said, "and pack my things up for three nights. I'm
going to Norwich, and I shan't want any dinner. Tell John I shall
want the cart, and he must be ready to go with me to the station at
2.15."

"I ought to be ready to cut the tongue out of my head," said Mrs
Baggett as she returned to the house, "for I might have known it was
the way to make him start at once."

Not in three days, but before the end of the week, Mr Whittlestaff
returned home, bringing with him a dark-featured tall girl, clothed,
of course, in deepest mourning from head to foot. To Mrs Baggett she
was an object of intense interest; because, although she had by no
means assented to her master's proposal, made on behalf of the young
lady, and did tell herself again and again during Mr Whittlestaff's
absence that she was quite sure that Mary Lawrie was a baggage, yet
in her heart she knew it to be impossible that she could go on living
in the house without loving one whom her master loved. With regard
to most of those concerned in the household, she had her own way.
Unless she would favour the groom, and the gardener, and the boy,
and the girls who served below her, Mr Whittlestaff would hardly be
contented with those subordinates. He was the easiest master under
whom a servant could live. But his favour had to be won through Mrs
Baggett's smiles. During the last two years, however, there had been
enough of discussion about Mary Lawrie to convince Mrs Baggett that,
in regard to this "interloper," as Mrs Baggett had once called her,
Mr Whittlestaff intended to have his own way. Such being the case,
Mrs Baggett was most anxious to know whether the young lady was such
as she could love.

Strangely enough, when the young lady had come, Mrs Baggett, for
twelve months, could not quite make up her mind. The young lady was
very different from what she had expected. Of interference in the
house there was almost literally none. Mary had evidently heard
much of Mrs Baggett's virtues,--and infirmities,--and seemed to
understand that she also had in many things to place herself under
Mrs Baggett's orders. "Lord love you, Miss Mary," she was heard
to say; "as if we did not all understand that you was to be missus
of everything at Croker's Hall,"--for such was the name of Mr
Whittlestaff's house. But those