that you are happy? Tell me
that you are happy. Do you think that I can be happy unless you are
happy with me?" Of course he gave her all the assurances that were
needed, and made it quite unnecessary that she should renew her
prayer.

"And I beg, Mr Owen, that for the future you will come to me, and not
make me come to you." This she said as she was taking her leave. "It
was very disagreeable, and very wrong, and will be talked about ever
so much. Nothing but my determination to have my own way could have
made me do it." Of course he promised her that there should be no
occasion for her again to put herself to the same inconvenience.

CHAPTER XXIV

Conclusion

Isabel spent one pleasant week with her lover at Hereford, and
then was summoned into Carmarthenshire. Mr Apjohn came over at her
father's invitation, and insisted on taking her back to Llanfeare.

"There are a thousand things to be done," he said, "and the sooner
you begin to do them the better. Of course you must live at the old
house, and you had better take up your habitation there for a while
before this other change is made." The other change was of course the
coming marriage, with the circumstances of which the lawyer had been
made acquainted.

Then there arose other questions. Should her father go with her or
should her lover? It was, however, at last decided that she should go
alone as regarded her family, but under the care of Mr Apjohn. It was
she who had been known in the house, and she who had better now be
seen there as her uncle's representative.

"You will have to be called Miss Jones," said the lawyer, "Miss
Indefer Jones. There will be a form, for which we shall have to pay,
I am afraid; but we had better take the name at once. You will have
to undergo a variety of changes in signing your name. You will become
first Miss Isabel Brodrick Indefer Jones, then Mrs William Owen,
then, when he shall have gone through the proper changes, Mrs William
Owen Indefer Jones. As such I hope you may remain till you shall be
known as the oldest inhabitant of Carmarthenshire."

Mr Apjohn took her to Carmarthen, and hence on to Llanfeare. At the
station there were many to meet her, so that her triumph, as she got
into the carriage, was almost painful to her. When she heard the
bells ring from the towers of the parish churches, she could hardly
believe that the peals were intended to welcome her back to her old
home. She was taken somewhat out