After the lesson I had received, and my narrow escape of detection in the very act, you may be sure I never trusted myself in the vicinity of that fat and cruel ‘Peerage,’ which possessed the secret, but would not disclose without compromising me.

In this state of tantalizing darkness and conjecture I should have departed, had not Cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved me.

The night before our departure she sat with us in our room, chatting a little farewell gossip.

‘And what do you think of Ilbury?’ she asked.

’I think him clever and accomplished, and amusing; but he sometimes appears to me very melancholy—­that is, for a few minutes together—­and then, I fancy, with an effort, re-engages in our conversation.’

’Yes, poor Ilbury!  He lost his brother only about five months since, and is only beginning to recover his spirits a little.  They were very much attached, and people thought that he would have succeeded to the title, had he lived, because Ilbury is difficile—­or a philosopher—­or a Saint Kevin; and, in fact, has begun to be treated as a premature old bachelor.’

’What a charming person his sister, Lady Mary, is.  She has made me promise to write to her,’ I said, I suppose—­such hypocrites are we—­to prove to Cousin Knollys that I did not care particularly to hear anything more about him.

’Yes, and so devoted to him.  He came down here, and took The Grange, for change of scene and solitude—­of all things the worst for a man in grief—­a morbid whim, as he is beginning to find out; for he is very glad to stay here, and confesses that he is much better since he came.  His letters are still addressed to him as Mr. Carysbroke; for he fancied if his rank were known, that the county people would have been calling upon him, and so he would have found himself soon involved in a tiresome round of dinners, and must have gone somewhere else.  You saw him, Milly, at Bartram, before Maud came?’

Yes, she had, when he called there to see her father.

’He thought, as he had accepted the trusteeship, that he could hardly, residing so near, omit to visit Silas.  He was very much struck and interested by him, and he has a better opinion of him—­you are not angry, Milly—­than some ill-natured people I could name; and he says that the cutting down of the trees will turn out to have been a mere slip.  But these slips don’t occur with clever men in other things; and some persons have a way of always making them in their own favour.  And, to talk of other things, I suspect that you and Milly will probably see Ilbury at Bartram; for I think he likes you very much.’

You; did she mean both, or only me?