e song, she clapped her hands together.

"Where did you get all your poetry?"

"He taught me that. We are not going to be fine people,--except
sometimes when we may be invited to Stalham. But I must go on
Thursday, Lady Albury. I came for a week, and I have been here ever
since the middle of February. It seems years since the old woman told
me I was perverse, and he said that she was right."

"Think how much you have done since that time."

"Yes, indeed. I very nearly destroyed myself;--didn't I?"

"Not very nearly."

"I thought I had. It was only when you showed me his letter on that
Sunday morning that I began to have any hopes. I wonder what Mr.
Greene preached about that morning. I didn't hear a word. I kept on
repeating what he said in the postscript."

"Was there a postscript?"

"Of course there was. Don't you remember?"

"No, indeed; not I."

"The letter would have been nothing without the postscript. He said
that Croppy was to come back for me. I knew he wouldn't say that
unless he meant to be good to me. And yet I wasn't quite sure of
it. I know it now; don't I? But I must go, Lady Albury. I ought to
let Aunt Margaret know all about it." Then it was settled that she
should go on the Thursday,--and on the Thursday she went. As it was
now considered quite wrong that she should travel by the railway
alone,--in dread, probably, lest the old lady should tell her again
how perverse she had been,--Colonel Stubbs accompanied her. It had
then been decided that the wedding must take place at Stalham, and
many messages were sent to Mr. and Mrs. Dosett assuring them that
they would be made very welcome on the occasion. "My own darling Lucy
will be away at that time with her own young man," said Ayala, in
answer to further invitations from Lady Albury.

"And so you've taken Colonel Stubbs at last," said her Aunt Margaret.

"He has taken me, aunt. I didn't take him."

"But you refused him ever so often."

"Well;--yes. I don't think I quite refused him."

"I thought you did."

"It was a dreadful muddle, Aunt Margaret;--but it has come right at
last, and we had better not talk about that part of it."

"I was so sure you didn't like him."

"Not like him? I always liked him better than anybody else in the
world that I ever saw."

"Dear me!"

"Of course I shouldn't say so if it hadn't come right at last. I may
say whatever I please about it now, and I declare that I always loved
him. A girl can be such