ught he was
going to have his own way in everything, and he improved in health and
spirits; for you know it is an old saying, "Always get your own way, and
you'll never die in a pet."

And then what was still a tottering situation was kept on its legs by the
sweet character and gentle temper of Mary Bartley.

We have already mentioned that she was superior to most women in the
habit of close attention to whatever she undertook. This was the real key
to her facility in languages, history, music, drawing, and calisthenics,
as her professor called female gymnastics. The flexible creature's limbs
were in secret steel. She could go thirty feet up a slack rope hand over
hand with wonderful ease and grace, and hang by one hand for ten minutes
to kiss the other to her friends. So the very day she was surprised into
consenting to marry Walter secretly she sat down to the Marriage Service
and learned it all by heart directly, and understood most of it.

By this means she realized that now she had another man to obey as well
as her father. So now, when Walter pressed her for secret meetings, she
said, submissively, "Oh yes, if you insist." She even remarked that she
concluded clandestine meetings were the natural consequence of a
clandestine marriage.

She used to meet her husband in the day when she could, and often for
five minutes under the moon. And she even promised to spend two or three
days with him at the lakes if a safe opportunity should occur. But for
that she stipulated that Mr. Hope must be absent.

Walter asked her why she was more afraid of Mr. Hope than of her father.

Her eyes seemed to look inward dimly, and at first she said she
didn't know. But after pondering the matter a little she said,
"Because he watches me more closely than papa, and that is
because--You won't tell anybody?"

"No."

"Not a soul, upon your honor?"

"Not a soul, dearest, upon my honor."

"Well, then, because he loves me more."

"Oh, come!" said Walter, incredulously.

But Mary would neither resign her opinion nor pursue a subject which
puzzled and grieved her.

We have now indicated the peaceful tenor of things in Derbyshire for a
period of some months. We shall have to show by-and-by that elements of
discord were accumulating under the surface; but at present we must leave
Derbyshire, and deal very briefly with another tissue of events,
beginning years ago, and running to a date three months, at least, ahead
of Colonel Cli