ary went to look after the
sandwiches, and Mrs Baggett to despatch the letter. In ten minutes
the letter was gone, and half an hour afterwards Mr Whittlestaff had
himself driven down to the station.

"What is it he means, Miss?" said Mrs Baggett, when the master was
gone.

"I do not know," said Mary, who was in truth very angry with the old
woman.

"He wants to make you Mrs Whittlestaff."

"In whatever he wants I shall obey him,--if I only knew how."

"It's what you is bound to do, Miss Mary. Think of what he has done
for you."

"I require no one to tell me that."

"What did Mr Gordon come here for, disturbing everybody? Nobody
asked him;--at least, I suppose nobody asked him." There was an
insinuation in this which Mary found it hard to bear. But it was
better to bear it than to argue on such a point with the servant.
"And he said things which put the master about terribly."

"It was not my doing."

"But he's a man as needn't have his own way. Why should Mr Gordon
have everything just as he likes it? I never heard tell of Mr Gordon
till he came here the other day. I don't think so much of Mr Gordon
myself." To this Mary, of course, made no answer. "He's no business
disturbing people when he's not sent for. I can't abide to see Mr
Whittlestaff put about in this way. I have known him longer than you
have."

"No doubt."

"He's a man that'll be driven pretty nigh out of his mind if he's
disappointed." Then there was silence, as Mary was determined not to
discuss the matter any further. "If you come to that, you needn't
marry no one unless you pleases." Mary was still silent. "They
shouldn't make me marry them unless I was that way minded. I can't
abide such doings," the old woman again went on after a pause. "I
knows what I knows, and I sees what I sees."

"What do you know?" said Mary, driven beyond her powers of silence.

"The meaning is, that Mr Whittlestaff is to be disappointed after
he have received a promise. Didn't he have a promise?" To this Mrs
Baggett got no reply, though she waited for one before she went on
with her argument. "You knows he had; and a promise between a lady
and gentleman ought to be as good as the law of the land. You stand
there as dumb as grim death, and won't say a word, and yet it all
depends upon you. Why is it to go about among everybody, that he's
not to get a wife just because a man's come home with his pockets
full of diamonds? It's that that people'll say; and they'