drawing-room to-day, Beatrice.
Will you remember to tell Mrs Richards?"

"Oh, certainly," was Mary's answer when Beatrice, with a voice a
little trembling, proposed to her to walk up to the house. "Certainly
I will, if Lady Arabella will receive me;--only one thing, Trichy."

"What's that, dearest?"

"Frank will think that I come after him."

"Never mind what he thinks. To tell you the truth, Mary, I often call
upon Patience for the sake of finding Caleb. That's all fair now, you
know."

Mary very quietly put on her straw bonnet, and said she was ready
to go up to the house. Beatrice was a little fluttered, and showed
it. Mary was, perhaps, a good deal fluttered, but she did not show
it. She had thought a good deal of her first interview with Lady
Arabella, of her first return to the house; but she had resolved
to carry herself as though the matter were easy to her. She would
not allow it to be seen that she felt that she brought with her to
Greshamsbury, comfort, ease, and renewed opulence.

So she put on her straw bonnet and walked up with Beatrice. Everybody
about the place had already heard the news. The old woman at the
lodge curtsied low to her; the gardener, who was mowing the lawn. The
butler, who opened the front door--he must have been watching Mary's
approach--had manifestly put on a clean white neckcloth for the
occasion.

"God bless you once more, Miss Thorne!" said the old man, in a
half-whisper. Mary was somewhat troubled, for everything seemed,
in a manner, to bow down before her. And why should not everything
bow down before her, seeing that she was in truth the owner of
Greshamsbury?

And then a servant in livery would open the big drawing-room door.
This rather upset both Mary and Beatrice. It became almost impossible
for Mary to enter the room just as she would have done two years ago;
but she got through the difficulty with much self-control.

"Mamma, here's Mary," said Beatrice.

Nor was Lady Arabella quite mistress of herself, although she had
studied minutely how to bear herself.

"Oh, Mary, my dear Mary; what can I say to you?" and then, with a
handkerchief to her eyes, she ran forward and hid her face on Miss
Thorne's shoulders. "What can I say--can you forgive me my anxiety
for my son?"

"How do you do, Lady Arabella?" said Mary.

"My daughter! my child! my Frank's own bride! Oh, Mary! oh, my child!
If I have seemed unkind to you, it has been through love to him."

"All th