sorry for your disappointment,' said her aunt quietly, 'but I am
old-fashioned enough to be glad that such strong respect and feeling
should be shown for your dear mother. I wish Annaple had spoken to me
before asking you, and I would have felt the way.'

'I'm sure it is not want of feeling,' said Nuttie, as her tears broke
forth.

'I did not say it was,' returned her aunt, 'but different generations
have different notions of the mode of showing it; and the present
certainly errs on the side of neglect of such tokens of mourning. If I
did not think that Annaple and her mother are really uncomfortable at
Lescombe, I should have told Mark that it was better taste to wait till
the summer.'

'If I might only have stayed at home--even if I did not go to the
wedding,' sighed Nuttie, who had only half listened to the Canoness's
wisdom.

'Since you do not go, it is much better that you should be out of the
way,' said Mrs. Egremont. 'Is your father ready to see me?'

So Nuttie had to submit, though she pouted to herself, feeling
grievously misjudged, first as if she had been wanting in regard to the
memory of her mother, who had been so fond of Mark, and so rejoiced in
his happiness; and then that her vexation was treated as mere love of
gaiety, whereas it really was disappointment at not seeing Mr. Dutton,
that good, grave, precise old friend, who could not be named in the
same breath with vanity. Moreover, she could not help suspecting that
respect to her mother was after all only a cloak to resentment against
Mark and his marriage.

However, she bethought herself that her mother had often been
disappointed and had borne it cheerfully, and after having done what
Aunt Ursel would have called 'grizzling' in her room for an hour, she
wrote her note to Miss Ruthven and endeavoured to be as usual, feeling
keenly that there was no mother now to perceive and gratefully commend
one of her only too rare efforts for good humour. On other grounds she
was very sorry to leave Bridgefield. May had, in her trouble, thawed
to her, and they were becoming really affectionate and intimate
companions, by force of propinquity and relationship, as well as of the
views that May had imbibed from Hugh Condamine. Moreover Nuttie felt
her aunt's watch over the baby a great assistance to her own ignorance.

However the Canoness had resigned to the poor little heir the perfect
and trustworthy nurse, whom Basil had outgrown, and who consented