“I think you had better let things take their own course,” said Mrs. Vavasour.  “Maria is quite old enough to know what she is about, and Horace will be down here in a few days to look after his own interests.”

“Well, but—­bless my soul!” cried the doctor, “I can’t make it out at all.  Do you mean that Maria is allowing this fellow Morris’s attention?  I thought she and Graham were devoted to each other, and had been for the last five years?”

“I think they thought they were, five years ago, when Horace, fresh home from the Crimea, was all the heroes in the world in Molly’s eyes; and he was just in the mood to fall in love with the first pretty bright girl he saw.  But all that was over long ago, and in these five years they have grown utterly apart.”

“Then the sooner they grow together again the better,” said the Doctor.

“I don’t believe it is possible,” answered his wife.  “I don’t see how they can ever pull together; they have different tastes, different aims, different ideas on every conceivable subject.  I am very fond of Molly; she is an excellent, good girl in her way, but it is not the way that will fit her to become Horace’s wife.  She will weary him, and he will—­not neglect her, he would never be unkind to a woman—­but he will not be the husband she deserves to have.  For my part, I think it will be a thousand pities if a mistaken sense of honour makes them hold to their engagement.”

“That may be all very well for Horace,” said the Doctor; “but what about Molly?  When a girl has been looking forward to marrying and having a house of her own, it is not so pleasant for her to have all her prospects destroyed.”

“Then she can marry Mr. Norris, if she pleases.”

“Indeed!  Well, if Maria’s mistaken sense of honour does not stand in the way of a flirtation with Morris, I shall be much astonished if Horace’s does not make itself felt one way or another.  However, it is no concern of mine; manage it your own way.”

“Indeed I have no intention of interfering,” said Mrs. Vavasour.  “I can imagine nothing more useless, especially as Horace will be here in less than a fortnight.  But I will write to-night to Aunt Barbara about Miss Linders.”

“Oh, yes, ask Miss Linders down here, by all means; and if Morris would only fall in love with her, that might settle all difficulties; but I suppose there is not much chance of that.”  And so saying, the Doctor went to dress for dinner.

It was a new world, this, in which our Madelon found herself, after the still leisure of her home in Cornwall, with its outlook on rocks, and sea, and sky, after the unbroken regularity of her London life, with its ever-recurring round of fixed employments—­a new world, this sheltered English village, lying amongst woods, and fields, and pastures, divided by trim brown hedges, whose every twig was studded with red March buds, and beneath which late March primroses were blowing—­and a new world, too, the varied life of this bright, cheerful house, where people were for ever coming and going, and where children’s footsteps were pattering, and children’s voices and laughter ringing, all day long.