are awful bores," said Hugh, finding it to be
necessary that he also should press forward his argument.

"I can trust him as far as I can see him," said Nora, "and therefore
I do not want to lose sight of him altogether."

Lady Rowley of course gave way and embraced her accepted son-in-law.
After all it might have been worse. He saw his way clearly, he said,
to making six hundred a year, and did not at all doubt that before
long he would do better than that. He proposed that they should be
married some time in the autumn, but was willing to acknowledge that
much must depend on the position of Trevelyan and his wife. He would
hold himself ready at any moment, he said, to start to Italy, and
would do all that could be done by a brother. Then Lady Rowley gave
him her blessing, and kissed him again,--and Nora kissed him too, and
hung upon him, and did not push him away at all when his arm crept
round her waist. And that feeling came upon him which must surely be
acknowledged by all engaged young men when they first find themselves
encouraged by mammas in the taking of liberties which they have
hitherto regarded as mysteries to be hidden, especially from maternal
eyes,--that feeling of being a fine fat calf decked out with ribbons
for a sacrifice.

CHAPTER XCI.

FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.

Another week went by and Sir Marmaduke had even yet not surrendered.
He quite understood that Nora was not to go back to the Islands.
And he had visited Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse at St. Diddulph's in order
to secure a home for her there, if it might be possible. Mr. Outhouse
did not refuse, but gave the permission in such a fashion as to make
it almost equal to a refusal. "He was," he said, "much attached to
his niece Nora, but he had heard that there was a love affair." Sir
Marmaduke, of course, could not deny the love affair. There was
certainly a love affair of which he did not personally approve, as
the gentleman had no fixed income and as far as he could understand
no fixed profession. "Such a love affair," thought Mr. Outhouse, "was
a sort of thing that he didn't know how to manage at all. If Nora
came to him, was the young man to visit at the house, or was he
not?" Then Mrs. Outhouse said something as to the necessity of an
anti-Stanbury pledge on Nora's part, and Sir Marmaduke found that
that scheme must be abandoned. Mrs. Trevelyan had written from
Florence more than once or twice, and in her last letter had said
tha