grandfather was becoming "childish,"
and the little dear duchess was old and frail for such a charge alone.
They had no daughter. The religious question was laid aside. My most
Protestant relatives thought my duty in the matter overwhelming, and
with all my clinging of heart to the moor home I felt myself that it was
so.

I don't know how I got over the parting. I wandered hopelessly about
familiar spots, and wished I had made sketches of them; but how could I
know I had not all life before me? The time was short, and preparations
had to be made. This kept us quiet. At the last, Jack put in all my
luggage, and did everything for me. Then he kissed me, and said, "GOD
bless you, Margery," and "linking" Eleanor by force, led her away and
comforted her like the good, dear boy he is. Clement drove me so
recklessly down the steep hill, and over the stones, that the momentary
expectation of an upset dried my tears, and I did not see much of the
villagers' kind and too touching farewells.

And so to the bleak station again, and the familiar old porter, whom
fate seems to leave long enough at _his_ post, and on through the
whirling railway panorama, by which one passes to so much joy and so
much sorrow--and then I was at The Vine once more.

I wonder if I am like my great-grandmother in her youth? Some people
(Elspeth among them) declare that it is so; and others that I am like my
poor mother. I suppose I have some Vandaleur features, from an eerie
little incident which befell me on the threshold of The Vine--an
appropriate beginning to a life that always felt like a weird, shadowy
dream.

I did not ring the bell of the outer gate on my arrival, because Adolphe
(grown up, but with the old, ruddy boy's face on the top of his man's
shoulders) was anxiously waiting for me, and devoted himself to my
luggage, telling me that Master was in the garden. Thither I ran so
hastily, that a straggling sweetbriar caught my hat and my net, and
dragged them off, sending my hair over my shoulders. My hair is not
long, however, like Eleanor's, and it curls, and I sometimes wear it
loose; so I did not stop to rearrange it, but hurried on towards my
great-grandfather, who was coming slowly to meet me from the other end
of the terrace, his hands behind his back, as of old. At least, I
thought it was to meet me; but as he came near I saw that he was
unconscious of my presence. He looked very old, his face was pale and
shrivelled, like a crumpled