doctor. "He knew," so he said to himself, "what stuff
girls were made of. Baronets did not grow like blackberries." And so,
assuring himself with such philosophy, he determined to make his
offer.

The time he selected for doing this was the hour before dinner; but
on the day on which his conversation with the doctor had taken place,
he was deterred by the presence of a strange visitor. To account for
this strange visit it will be necessary that we should return to
Greshamsbury for a few minutes.

Frank, when he returned home for his summer vacation, found that
Mary had again flown; and the very fact of her absence added fuel to
the fire of his love, more perhaps than even her presence might have
done. For the flight of the quarry ever adds eagerness to the pursuit
of the huntsman. Lady Arabella, moreover, had a bitter enemy; a
foe, utterly opposed to her side in the contest, where she had once
fondly looked for her staunchest ally. Frank was now in the habit
of corresponding with Miss Dunstable, and received from her most
energetic admonitions to be true to the love which he had sworn. True
to it he resolved to be; and therefore, when he found that Mary was
flown, he resolved to fly after her.

He did not, however, do this till he had been in a measure provoked
to it by it by the sharp-tongued cautions and blunted irony of his
mother. It was not enough for her that she had banished Mary out of
the parish, and made Dr Thorne's life miserable; not enough that
she harassed her husband with harangues on the constant subject of
Frank's marrying money, and dismayed Beatrice with invectives against
the iniquity of her friend. The snake was so but scotched; to kill it
outright she must induce Frank utterly to renounce Miss Thorne.

This task she essayed, but not exactly with success. "Well, mother,"
said Frank, at last turning very red, partly with shame, and partly
with indignation, as he made the frank avowal, "since you press me
about it, I tell you fairly that my mind is made up to marry Mary
sooner or later, if--"

"Oh, Frank! good heavens! you wicked boy; you are saying this
purposely to drive me distracted."

"If," continued Frank, not attending to his mother's interjections,
"if she will consent."

"Consent!" said Lady Arabella. "Oh, heavens!" and falling into the
corner of the sofa, she buried her face in her handkerchief.

"Yes, mother, if she will consent. And now that I have told you so
much, it is only j