“My sister,” Fieldsend said, “and Miss Allan,” by way of response to the inquiring looks of the newcomers.  Then George and Matthew learnt many things that surprised them.  They had had no news from home all the summer, the one letter that had been sent having miscarried.  Binfield Towers was once more occupied, Mr. Fairburn having found an excellent tenant for the place in Mr. Allan, the eminent shipping-merchant of London, the very man into whose office George was to have gone.  The little group laughed merrily at the thought of the gallant Captain Fairburn wielding a long quill in a dingy office.  Mr. Allan, a widower, who had taken up his abode in the mansion, bringing with him his only daughter, Janet, had not been two months in the village before he had made an offer of marriage to the devoted Mrs. Maynard, and the old lady was now mistress of Binfield Towers.  Mary Blackett had thereupon taken at their word the affectionate offer of the Fairburns, and was now to them as a daughter.  Nor was this all.  Fieldsend’s old father had lately died, and the Major himself had succeeded to the baronetcy and had left the army.  Brother and sister had accepted with pleasure the invitation that had come to them to spend a few weeks with the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Fairburn.  Matthew was to make the same hospitable roof his abode.

“The good old dad will find it a bit of a squeeze,” George ruminated, as he walked with the rest towards the family cottage.  Cottage!  He gave a jump when the home came into full view.  It was a veritable mansion.  The original nucleus was there, but so deftly added to and surrounded by a regular series of new wings, and so framed and embellished by wide lawn and flower-bed that George did not know this fine place.  He remarked on the change when his mother came to his room at bedtime, to give him his good-night kiss as she had been wont to do in the days of old.

“Father wanted to make the place a bit more presentable now we have an officer son,” the good dame explained, with simple and pardonable pride.  “And we can afford it,” she added, blushing like a shy schoolgirl as she made this whispered confession; “besides we had Mary to consider, too.”  It was all very charming, George thought.

The winter passed all too quickly.  Mr. Allan proved to be a capital neighbour, and had a great liking for young people about him.  So there were pleasant times, at the Towers—­dinners, balls, shooting and hunting parties, and the like.  All the eligible society of the country-side found its way to Binfield Towers.  Yet somehow George Fairburn did not fall into a fit of the blues when Sir Mark Fieldsend took his sister back to their west-country home; in fact, strange to say, George rather rejoiced to see the back of the retired major, his old comrade-in-arms.  Why this was so he would have found it hard to explain, for a more unassuming and agreeable fellow than the baronet it would not have been easy to find.