ld that of value from one whom you can suspect of
deliberate deceit."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Chillingly. Bear with my rudeness. I have been
so taken by surprise, I scarcely know what I am saying. But let us
understand each other completely before we part. If your parents
withhold their consent you will communicate it to me; me only, not to
Lily. I repeat I know nothing of the state of her affections. But it
might embitter any girl's life to be led on to love one whom she could
not marry."

"It shall be as you say. But if they do consent?"

"Then you will speak to me before you seek an interview with Lily, for
then comes another question: Will her guardian consent?--and--and--"

"And what?"

"No matter. I rely on your honour in this request, as in all else.
Good-day."

She turned back with hurried footsteps, muttering to herself, "But they
will not consent. Heaven grant that they will not consent, or if they
do, what--what is to be said or done? Oh, that Walter Melville were
here, or that I knew where to write to him!"

On his way back to Cromwell Lodge, Kenelm was overtaken by the vicar.

"I was coming to you, my dear Mr. Chillingly, first to thank you for the
very pretty present with which you have gladdened the heart of my little
Clemmy, and next to ask you to come with me quietly to-day to meet Mr.
-----, the celebrated antiquarian, who came to Moleswich this morning
at my request to examine that old Gothic tomb in our churchyard. Only
think, though he cannot read the inscription any better than we can, he
knows all about its history. It seems that a young knight renowned for
feats of valour in the reign of Henry IV. married a daughter of one of
those great Earls of Montfichet who were then the most powerful family
in these parts. He was slain in defending the church from an assault by
some disorderly rioters of the Lollard faction; he fell on the very spot
where the tomb is now placed. That accounts for its situation in the
churchyard, not within the fabric. Mr. ----- discovered this fact in
an old memoir of the ancient and once famous family to which the young
knight Albert belonged, and which came, alas! to so shameful an end,
the Fletwodes, Barons of Fletwode and Malpas. What a triumph over pretty
Lily Mordaunt, who always chose to imagine that the tomb must be that of
some heroine of her own romantic invention! Do come to dinner; Mr. -----
is a most agreeable man, and full of interesting anecdotes."