rable to his mission. There was to be no
embracing or permission for embracing on the present occasion. Had he
been left alone with Sir Marmaduke he would probably have told his
business plainly, let Sir Marmaduke's manner to him have been what
it might; but it was impossible for him to do this with three young
ladies in the room with him. Seeing that Nora was embarrassed by
her difficulties, and that Nora's father was cross and silent, he
endeavoured to talk to the other girls, and asked them concerning
their journey and the ship in which they had come. But it was very
up-hill work. Lucy and Sophy could talk as glibly as any young
ladies home from any colony,--and no higher degree of fluency can
be expressed;--but now they were cowed. Their elder sister was
shamefully and most undeservedly disgraced, and this man had had
something,--they knew not what,--to do with it. "Is Priscilla quite
well?" Nora asked at last.

"Quite well. I heard from her yesterday. You know they have left the
Clock House."

"I had not heard it."

"Oh yes;--and they are living in a small cottage just outside the
village. And what else do you think has happened?"

"Nothing bad, I hope, Mr. Stanbury."

"My sister Dorothy has left her aunt, and is living with them again
at Nuncombe."

"Has there been a quarrel, Mr. Stanbury?"

"Well, yes;--after a fashion there has, I suppose. But it is a long
story and would not interest Sir Marmaduke. The wonder is that
Dorothy should have been able to stay so long with my aunt. I will
tell it you all some day." Sir Marmaduke could not understand why
a long story about this man's aunt and sister should be told to
his daughter. He forgot,--as men always do in such circumstances
forget,--that, while he was living in the Mandarins, his daughter,
living in England, would of course pick up new interest and become
intimate with new histories. But he did not forget that pressure
of the hand which he had seen, and he determined that his daughter
Nora could not have any worse lover than the friend of his elder
daughter's husband.

Stanbury had just determined that he must go, that there was no
possibility for him either to say or do anything to promote his cause
at the present moment, when the circumstances were all changed by the
return home of Lady Rowley and Mrs. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley knew, and
had for some days known, much more of Stanbury than had come to the
ears of Sir Marmaduke. She understood in the f