-

"It isn't Mother Hubbard, Dick, but the good fairy out of the
story-book. God bless you! old lady, for this. Here, Humphrey, see to
your mother."

But Humphrey was pumping away at both Richard Trevor's arms, as he
cried, excitedly--

"Hooray! Master Dick. I never felt so happy in my life. Polly, lass,
we shall get the cottage after all."

He saw the next moment, though, that Mrs Lloyd had fainted dead away;
and his were the arms that carried her to her bedroom, while Polly crept
to the old Welshwoman's side.

"I came, look you, Master Richard, to put all this right," said the old
lady. "Putt it was all nonsense, I teclare to cootness. Anypody might
have seen."

"I--I thank you--I'm contused--dazed, rather," said Trevor, looking from
one to the other. "Polly, my poor girl, I'll try to make up to you for
this disappointment."

"I'm not disappointed, please, Mr Richard, sir," said Mrs Humphrey,
bobbing a curtsey, and then trying a boarding-school salute and failing,
and blushing terribly.

"I'm very happy indeed, and I'm sure Humphrey is--he said so, and he
always tells the truth. And if you please, sir, aunt and I will go now
into the housekeeper's room."

"That you won't, if I have any influence with some one here," said
Pratt. "No, my pretty little wife; you and your brick of a husband
shall go off in triumph; and oh, by Jove! here's the present I brought
down for you."

Frank Pratt's present was a handsome ring, and he was placing it above
the plain one already on her finger, when Humphrey came back.

"She's all right again," he said, huskily. "I was obliged to come away,
for she wanted to go on her knees--and I couldn't stand it. Polly--Aunt
Price--she wants you both. Master Dick, sir, isn't this a day?"

Volume 3, Chapter XX.

CONCLUSION.

Everybody said, as a matter of course, afterwards, that the whole affair
was perfectly absurd, and that anybody could see with half an eye that
Humphrey was not a Trevor. All the same, though, he had been accepted
for many months as the owner of the estate.

The young couple went off on their wedding trip, for Mrs Lloyd's
illness was of only a transitory nature; and soon after the carriage had
taken them to the station, the old housekeeper sent a message to Trevor,
asking leave to see him.

What took place at that interview Richard Trevor never said; but the
result was that a couple of hours after she and her husband had left the
place, havin