had experienced--still more if she reflected on the
silent, almost sarcastic, criticism apparent in Winterborne's air
towards her--could not be told to this worthy couple in words.

It so happened that on this very day Fitzpiers was called away from
Hintock by an engagement to attend some medical meetings, and his
visits, therefore, did not begin at once. A note, however, arrived
from him addressed to Grace, deploring his enforced absence. As a
material object this note was pretty and superfine, a note of a sort
that she had been unaccustomed to see since her return to Hintock,
except when a school friend wrote to her--a rare instance, for the
girls were respecters of persons, and many cooled down towards the
timber-dealer's daughter when she was out of sight. Thus the receipt
of it pleased her, and she afterwards walked about with a reflective
air.

In the evening her father, who knew that the note had come, said, "Why
be ye not sitting down to answer your letter? That's what young folks
did in my time."

She replied that it did not require an answer.

"Oh, you know best," he said. Nevertheless, he went about his business
doubting if she were right in not replying; possibly she might be so
mismanaging matters as to risk the loss of an alliance which would
bring her much happiness.

Melbury's respect for Fitzpiers was based less on his professional
position, which was not much, than on the standing of his family in the
county in by-gone days. That implicit faith in members of
long-established families, as such, irrespective of their personal
condition or character, which is still found among old-fashioned people
in the rural districts reached its full intensity in Melbury. His
daughter's suitor was descended from a family he had heard of in his
grandfather's time as being once great, a family which had conferred
its name upon a neighboring village; how, then, could anything be amiss
in this betrothal?

"I must keep her up to this," he said to his wife. "She sees it is for
her happiness; but still she's young, and may want a little prompting
from an older tongue."

CHAPTER XXIII.

With this in view he took her out for a walk, a custom of his when he
wished to say anything specially impressive. Their way was over the
top of that lofty ridge dividing their woodland from the cider
district, whence they had in the spring beheld the miles of apple-trees
in bloom. All was now deep green. The spot reca