your face.  Mary came up before you in moving habit as she lived—­the young Mary who caught all hearts, not heartless herself, and laid hold of mere straws to save herself as she drifted desperately with circumstances; not the woman who has been painted as an actor from first to last, as coming forth draped for effect at the very closing scene,—­not that woman, but the girlish queen who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a kingdom while she could.

IV.

“They are a nice family, those Ormistons,” said Mr. Parker to his wife as they drove to the railway-station in the moonlight.

“Very,” said Mrs. Parker; “and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad.  I hope he and Miss Ormiston will make it out:  I did my best for them.”

“They’ll be quite able to do the best for themselves:  it is always better to let things of that kind alone.”

“I don’t know that,” said Mrs. Parker:  “if a little shove is all that is needed, it is a pity not to give it.”

“But what if your shove sends people separate?  That’s not what you intended, I fancy?”

“No fear:  people are not so easily separated as all that.”

“Well, we have had an uncommonly pleasant visit:  I only wish the heads of the house had been at home.”

Either the attachment of this pair must have been pretty evident to ordinary capacities, or Mrs. Parker must have been of a matchmaking turn of mind; probably the latter, for Bessie at least was sure that no mortal guessed her secret; which was a great comfort to her, seeing that Edwin was so indifferent.  Alas! there is no rose without a thorn, or if there is it is a scentless, useless thing, most likely incapable of giving either pleasure or pain.

The Parkers had left early.  When the young people went in-doors again it was only seven o’clock:  the girls proposed a game at hide-and-seek, and Bessie seconded the proposal; for you see it would have been rather a formidable business to sit down and entertain Mr. Forrester all the evening with conversation, rational or otherwise; and although at the moment she was in the dignified position of lady of the castle, she could not the less enjoy a game amazingly.

The theatre of operations was wisely restricted, because if they had gone all over the castle they might have hidden themselves so that the game would have been endless; therefore they kept to the under part of the inhabited region.  At length, tiring of this, they changed their game to blindman’s buff, and went to the kitchen to play it, there being more room and fewer obstacles there; besides that, it was empty of tenants at the time, the servants having gone to see some of the neighbors.

It was a curious old kitchen, with a very low roof, and having a fireplace in a big semicircular stone recess.  Many a boar’s head had revolved there, and many a venison pasty had sent forth its fragrance to greet the tired hunters returning from the chase.  The fire glowed in its deep recess like the eye of an old-world monster in a cavern, till one of the boys seized the poker and made it flame up, throwing its blaze out as far as it could for its walls, and making the kitchen and the group standing in it like a picture by Rembrandt.