always pleased to
see him. His visits were generally made in the evening; and it was his
delight to linger over the pretty little round table by the bow-window,
drinking tea dispensed by Marian. The bright home-like room, the lovely
face turned so trustingly to his; these were the things which made that
fair vision of the future that haunted him so often now. He fancied
himself the master of some pretty villa in the suburbs--at Kingston or
Twickenham, perhaps--with a garden sloping down to the water's edge, a
lawn on which he and his wife and some chosen friend might sit after
dinner in the long summer evenings, sipping their claret or their tea, as
the case might be, and watching the last rosy glow of the sunset fade and
die upon the river. He fancied himself with this girl for his wife, and
the delight of going back from the dull dryasdust labours of his city
life to a home in which she would bid him welcome. He behaved with a due
amount of caution, and did not give the young lady any reason to suspect
the state of the case yet awhile. Marian was perfectly devoid of
coquetry, and had no idea that this gentleman's constant presence at the
cottage could have any reference to herself. He liked her uncle; what
more natural than that he should like that gallant soldier, whom Marian
adored as the first of mankind? And it was out of his liking for the
Captain that he came so often.

The Captain, however, had not been slow to discover the real state of
affairs, and the discovery had given him unqualified satisfaction. For a
long time his quiet contentment in this pleasant, simple, easy-going life
had been clouded by anxious thoughts about Marian's future. His
death--should that event happen before she married--must needs leave her
utterly destitute. The little property from which his income was derived
was not within his power to bequeath. It would pass, upon his death, to
one of his nephews. The furniture of the cottage might realize a few
hundreds, which would most likely be, for the greater part, absorbed by
the debts of the year and the expenses of his funeral. Altogether, the
outlook was a dreary one, and the Captain had suffered many a sharp pang
in brooding over it. Lovely and attractive as Marian was, the chances of
an advantageous marriage were not many for her in such a place as
Lidford. It was natural, therefore, that Captain Sedgewick should welcome
the advent of such a man as Gilbert Fenton--a man of good position