It was settled finally, after a good deal of pleasant discussion, that the wedding should take place early in the coming spring—­at latest in April.  Even this seemed a long delay to Gilbert; but he submitted to it as an inevitable concession to the superior instinct of his betrothed, which harmonised so well with Mrs. Lister’s ideas of wisdom and propriety.  There was the house to be secured, too, so that he might have a fitting home to which to take his darling when their honeymoon was over; and as he had no female relation in London who could take the care of furnishing this earthly paradise off his hands, he felt that the whole business must devolve upon himself, and could not be done without time.

Captain Sedgewick promised to bring Marian to town for a fortnight in October, in order that she might assist her lover in that delightful duty of house-hunting.  She looked forward to this visit with quite a childlike pleasure.  Her life at Lidford had been completely happy; but it was a monotonous kind of happiness; and the notion of going about London, even at the dullest time of the year, was very delightful to her.

The weather happened to be especially fine that September.  It was the brightest month of the year, and the lovers took long rambles together in the woodland roads and lanes about Lidford, sometimes alone, more often with the Captain, who was a very fair pedestrian, in spite of having had a bullet or two through his legs in the days gone by.  When the weather was too warm for walking, Gilbert borrowed Martin Lister’s dog-cart, and drove them on long journeys of exploration to remote villages, or to the cheery little market-town ten miles away.

They all three set out for a walk one afternoon, when Gilbert had been about a fortnight at Lidford, with no particular destination, only bent on enjoying the lovely weather and the rustic beauty of woodland and meadow.  The Captain chose their route, as he always did on these occasions, and under his guidance they followed the river-bank for some distance, and then turned aside into a wood in which Gilbert Fenton had never been before.  He said so, with an expression of surprise at the beauty of the place, where the fern grew deep under giant oaks and beeches, and where the mossy ground dipped suddenly down to a deep still pool which reflected the sunlit sky through a break in the dark foliage that sheltered it.

“What, have you never been here?” exclaimed the Captain; “then you have never seen Heatherly, I suppose?”

“Never.  By the way, is not that Sir David Forster’s place?” asked Gilbert, remembering John Saltram’s promise.

He had seen very little more of his friend after that visit to Rivercombe, and had half forgotten Mr. Saltram’s talk of coming down to this neighbourhood on purpose to be presented to Marian.

“Yes.  It is something of a show-place, too; and we think a good deal of it in these parts.  There are some fine Sir Joshuas among the family portraits, painted in the days when the Forsters were better off and of more importance in the county than they are now.  And there are a few other good pictures—­Dutch interiors, and some seascapes by Bakhuysen.  Decidedly you ought to see Heatherly.  Shall we push on there this afternoon?”