‘God’s will be done!’ said the grey-headed butler; ’but I hope she will find happiness at home.  ’Tis nigh on twenty years since I first nursed her in these arms.’

‘I wonder if there is any new Lord Cadurcis,’ said the footman.  ’I think he was the last of the line.’

’It would have been a happy day if I had lived to have seen the poor young lord marry Miss Venetia,’ said the housekeeper.  ’I always thought that match was made in heaven.’

‘He was a sweet-spoken young gentleman,’ said the housemaid.

‘For my part,’ said the footman, ’I should like to have seen our real master, Squire Herbert.  He was a famous gentleman by all accounts.’

‘I wish they had lived quietly at home,’ said the housekeeper.

‘I shall never forget the time when my lord returned,’ said the grey-headed butler.  ‘I must say I thought it was a match.’

‘Mistress Pauncefort seemed to think so,’ said the housemaid.

‘And she understands those things,’ said the footman.

‘I see the carriage,’ said a servant who was at a window in the hall.  All immediately bustled about, and the housekeeper sent a message to the steward.

The carriage might be just discovered at the end of the avenue.  It was some time before it entered the iron gates that were thrown open for its reception.  The steward stood on the steps with his hat off, the servants were ranged in order at the entrance.  Touching their horses with the spur, and cracking their whips, the postilions dashed round the circular plot and stopped at the hall-door.  Under any circumstances a return home after an interval of years is rather an awful moment; there was not a servant who was not visibly affected.  On the outside of the carriage was a foreign servant and Mistress Pauncefort, who was not so profuse as might have been expected in her recognitions of her old friends; her countenance was graver than of yore.  Misfortune and misery had subdued even Mistress Pauncefort.  The foreign servant opened the door of the carriage; a young man, who was a stranger to the household, but who was in deep mourning, alighted, and then Lady Annabel appeared.  The steward advanced to welcome her, the household bowed and curtseyed.  She smiled on them for a moment graciously and kindly, but her countenance immediately reassumed a serious air, and whispering one word to the strange gentleman, she entered the hall alone, inviting the steward to follow her.

’I hope your ladyship is well; welcome home, my lady; welcome again to Cherbury; a welcome return, my lady; hope Miss Venetia is quite well; happy to see your ladyship amongst us again, and Miss Venetia too, my lady.’  Lady Annabel acknowledged these salutations with kindness, and then, saying that Miss Herbert was not very well and was fatigued with her journey, she dismissed her humble but trusty friends.  Lady Annabel then turned and nodded to her fellow-traveller.