regard her as "quite a
nice little thing who had had rather a rotten time."

This was the impression Lady Gertrude's niece contrived to make on most
people. It suited her very well and secured her many gifts and
pleasures which would not otherwise have come her way. She had
accepted her aunt's invitation to stay at Trenby Hall rather guardedly
in the first instance, but when, as the visit drew towards its end,
Lady Gertrude had proposed that she should make her home there
altogether, she had jumped at the offer.

She speedily discovered that she and Trenby had many tastes in common,
and with the sharp instinct of a woman who has tried hard to achieve a
successful marriage and failed, there appeared to her no reason why in
this instance "something should not come of it"--to use the
time-honoured phrase which so delicately conveys so much. And but for
the fact that Nan Davenant was staying at Mallow, something might have
come of it! Since community of tastes is responsible for many a happy
and contented marriage.

Throughout the time she had lived at Trenby Hall, Isobel had contrived
to make herself almost indispensable to Roger. If a "damned button"
flew off his coat, she was always at hand with needle and thread, and a
quaint carved ivory thimble crowning one small finger, to sew it on
again. Or should his dress tie decline to adorn his collar in
precisely the proper manner, those nimble, claw-like little fingers
could always produce a well-tied bow in next to no time. It was Isobel
who found all the things which, manlike, he so constantly mislaid, who
tramped over the fields with him, interesting herself in all the
outdoor side of his life, and she was almost as good at landing a trout
as he himself.

There seemed small likelihood of Roger's going far afield in search of
a wife, so that Isobel had not apprehended much danger to her
hopes--more especially as she had a shrewd idea that Lady Gertrude
would look upon the marriage with the selfish approval of a woman who
gains a daughter without losing the services of a niece who is "used to
her ways."

Such a union need not even upset existing arrangements. Isobel had
learned by long experience how to "get on" amicably with her autocratic
relative, and the latter could remain--as her niece knew very well she
would wish to remain at Trenby Hall, still nominally its chatelaine.

Lady Gertrude and Isobel had never been frequent visitors at Mallow,
and it had s