“Not to-day, surely,” cried Mrs. Lennox, in alarm; “to-morrow——­”

“My orders are peremptory—­the suit is pressing,” with a significant smile to Mary; “this day—­oh, ye hours!” looking at a timepiece, “this very minute.  Come Mary—­are you ready—­cap-a-pie?”

At another time Mary would have thought only of the regrets of her venerable friend at parting with her; but now she felt only her own impatience to be gone, and she hastily quitted the room to prepare for her departure.

On returning to it Colonel Lennox advanced to meet her, evidently desirous of saying something, yet labouring under great embarrassment.

“Were it not too selfish and presumptuous,” said he, while his heightened colour spoke his confusion, “I would venture to express a hope that your absence will not be very long from my poor mother.”

Mary pretended to be very busy collecting her work, drawings, etc., which lay scattered about, and merely bent her head in acknowledgment.  Colonel Lennox proceeded—­

“I am aware of the sacrifice it must be to such as Miss Douglas to devote her time and talents to the comforting of the blind and desolate; and I cannot express—­she cannot conceive—­the gratitude—­the respect—­the admiration, with which my heart is filled at such proofs of noble disinterested benevolence on her part.”

Had Mary raised her eyes to those that vainly sought to meet hers, she would there have read all, and more than had been expressed; but she could only think, “He has been entreated to love!” and at that humiliating idea she bent her head still lower to the colour that dyed her cheek to an almost painful degree, while a sense of suffocation at her throat prevented her disclaiming, as she wished to do, the merit of any sacrifice.  Some sketches of Lochmarlie lay upon a table at which she had been drawing the day before; they had ever been precious in her sight till now; but they only excited feelings of mortification, as she recollected having taken them from her portefeuille at Mrs. Lennox’s request to show to her son.

“This was part of the parade by which I was to win him,” thought she with bitterness; and scarcely conscious of what she did, she crushed them together, and threw them into the fire.  Then hastily advancing to Mrs. Lennox, she tried to bid her farewell; but as she thought it was for the last time, tears of tenderness as well as pride stood in her eyes.

“God bless you, my dear child!” said the unsuspecting Mrs. Lennox, as she held her:  in her arms.  “And God will bless you in His way—­though His ways are not as our ways.  I cannot urge you to return to this dreary abode.  But oh, Mary!  Think sometimes in your gaiety, that when you do come, you bring gladness to a mournful heart, and lighten eyes that never see the sun!”

Mary, too much affected to reply, could only wring the hand of her venerable friend, as she tore herself from her embrace, and followed Lady Emily to the carriage.  For some time they proceeded in silence.  Mary dreaded to encounter her cousin’s eyes, which she was aware were fixed upon her with more than their usual scrutiny.  She therefore kept hers steadily employed in surveying the well-known objects the road presented.  At length her Ladyship began in a grave tone.