Mr. Buxton tried to calm himself down with believing that Frank would change his mind, if he saw more of the world; but, somehow, he had a prophesying distrust of this idea internally.  The worst was, there was no fault to be found with Maggie herself, although she might want the accomplishments he desired to see in his son’s wife.  Her connections, too, were so perfectly respectable (though humble enough in comparison with Mr. Buxton’s soaring wishes), that there was nothing to be objected to on that score; her position was the great offence.  In proportion to his want of any reason but this one, for disapproving of the engagement, was his annoyance under it.  He assumed a reserve toward Frank; which was so unusual a restraint upon his open, genial disposition, that it seemed to make him irritable toward all others in contact with him, excepting Erminia.  He found it difficult to behave rightly to Maggie.  Like all habitually cordial persons, he went into the opposite extreme, when he wanted to show a little coolness.  However angry he might be with the events of which she was the cause, she was too innocent and meek to justify him in being more than cool; but his awkwardness was so great, that many a man of the world has met his greatest enemy, each knowing the other’s hatred, with less freezing distance of manner than Mr. Buxton’s to Maggie.  While she went simply on in her own path, loving him the more through all, for old kindness’ sake, and because he was Frank’s father, he shunned meeting her with such evident and painful anxiety, that at last she tried to spare him the encounter, and hurried out of church, or lingered behind all, in order to avoid the only chance they now had of being forced to speak; for she no longer went to the dear house in Combehurst, though Erminia came to see her more than ever.

Mrs. Browne was perplexed and annoyed beyond measure.  She upbraided Mr. Buxton to every one but Maggie.  To her she said—­“Any one in their senses might have foreseen what had happened, and would have thought well about it, before they went and fell in love with a young man of such expectations as Mr. Frank Buxton.”

In the middle of all this dismay, Edward came over from Woodchester for a day or two.  He had been told of the engagement, in a letter from Maggie herself; but if was too sacred a subject for her to enlarge upon to him; and Mrs. Browne was no letter writer.  So this was his first greeting to Maggie; after kissing her: 

“Well, Sancho, you’ve done famously for yourself.  As soon as I got your letter I said to Harry Bish—­’Still waters run deep; here’s my little sister Maggie, as quiet a creature as ever lived, has managed to catch young Buxton, who has five thousand a-year if he’s a penny.’  Don’t go so red, Maggie.  Harry was sure to hear of if soon from some one, and I see no use in keeping it secret, for it gives consequence to us all.”