amiable speech was muttered and scarcely heard
or attended to by Alice in her struggle to conceal the grief she felt
at the uncompromising opinion of her child. Nuttie might outgrow being
raw, but there seemed less rather than more prospect of a better
understanding with her father. About a week later Mark made his
appearance, timing it happily when his uncle was making his toilette,
so that his aunt was taking a turn on the sunny terrace with Nuttie
when the young man came hurrying up the garden.

'Mark! What? Are you come home?'

'Not the others. They are at Mr. Condamine's, I came last night--by
way of Lescombe. Edda, dear, it is all right! Oh, I forgot you did
not know! There was no seeing you before we went away. Ah! by the by,
how is my uncle?'

'Much better, except that using his eyes brings on the pain. 'What is
it, Mark? Ah! I can guess,' she said, aided no doubt by that
conjecture of her husband's.

'Yes, yes, yes!' he answered, with a rapidity quite unlike himself.
'Why, Nuttie, how mystified you look!'

'I'm sure I don't wonder at any one being glad to live at dear old
Micklethwayte,' said Nuttie slowly. 'But, somehow, I didn't think it
of you, Mark.'

'My dear, that's not all!' said her mother.

'Oh!' cried Nuttie, with a prolonged intonation. 'Is it?--Oh, Mark!
did you _do it_ that night when you led the horse home?'

'Even so, Nuttie! And, Aunt Alice, Lady Ronnisglen is the best and
bravest of old ladies, and the wisest. Nobody objects but Lady Delmar,
and she declares she shall not consider it an engagement till
Ronnisglen has been written to in Nepaul, as if he had anything to do
with it; but that matters the less, since they all insist on our
waiting till I've had a year's trial at the office! I suppose they
could not be expected to do otherwise, but it is a pity, for I'm afraid
Lady Delmar will lead Annaple and her mother a life of it.'

'Dear Mark, I am delighted that it is all going so well.'

'I knew you would be! I told them I must tell _you_, though it is not
to go any farther.'

So that hope of Mark's restoration to the inheritance faded from Alice,
and yet she could not be concerned for him. She had never seen him in
such good spirits, for the sense of failure and disappointment had
always been upon him; and the definite prospect of occupation, gilded
by his hopes of Annaple, seemed to make a new man of him.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN OLD FRIEND.

'My heart