ed by the many visits to Tolcarne, and
lastly by the coming of the Reas to Penreife, that Trevor was engaged to
Valentina Rea, the woman was furious.

"It shan't go on, Lloyd--I won't have it. I'll put a stop to it. He
shall marry Polly, or--"

"Martha, Martha!" cried her husband, wringing his hands--"you will ruin
us."

"Ruin! I'll ruin him--an upstart! I'll have him on his knees to me.
After the way in which I brought him up, to turn upon me like this. He
shall marry Polly!"

"How can you be so mad?" groaned Lloyd. "Oh, Martha, think of our old
age."

"Think!" said Mrs Lloyd, contemptuously, "I do think. Mad? Isn't a
girl with the blood of the Lloyds in her veins better than the daughter
of an upstart London merchant? There--hold your tongue; and don't you
interfere. I'm not going to be stopped in my plans, so I tell you.
Lloyd, are you asleep?"

"No," said her husband, with a heavy sigh, "I wish I was, so as to
forget my troubles."

"You dolt!" exclaimed Mrs Lloyd. "Have you seen Humphrey hanging about
lately?"

There was no answer.

"I say, have you seen Humphrey hanging about or talking to Polly lately?
I don't want to think the girl artful; but she has been very quiet, and
I hardly like it. Lloyd, do you hear what I say?"

There was a long-drawn breath for reply, and Mrs Lloyd went on making
her plans--giving her husband the credit of being asleep.

But the latter was very wide awake, and he had seen something that night
of which he did not wish to tell. For while Mrs Lloyd had been busy
with the company that evening, there had come a soft tap on the
housekeeper's room window, whose effect was to make little Polly turn
violently red in the face, begin to tremble, then, after listening at
the door, steal out, little thinking that the butler had seen her go.

Of course it was very artful and very wrong, but it is an acknowledged
fact that there is a certain magnetism in love; and, to go back to the
simile before used, when the loadstone came what could the industrious
little needle do?

The next morning, after breakfast, Mrs Lloyd called Polly to her.

"Found out at last," thought poor Polly.

She went shivering up to her very stern-countenanced aunt, with the
recollection of twenty sweet but stolen meetings on her conscience.

"Go and put on your white muslin dress and blue ribbons, Polly," said
her aunt.

"Are we going out, aunt?" faltered the girl.

"You are, my dear," said M