Mr. Fairfax heard all his old friend had to urge, and, though he made light of Sir Edward, it was with a startling candor that he added, “But woman’s a riddle indeed if Elizabeth would give her shoe-tie for Cecil.”  Lady Angleby was so amazed and shocked that she made no answer whatever.  The squire went on:  “The farce had better pause—­or end.  Elizabeth is sensitive and shrewd enough.  Cecil has no heart to give her, and she will never give hers unless in fair exchange.  I have observed her all along, and that is the conclusion I have come to.  She saw Miss Julia Gardiner at Ryde, and fathomed that old story:  she supposes them to be engaged, and is of much too loyal a disposition to dream of love for another woman’s lover.  That is the explanation of her friendliness towards Cecil.”

“But Julia Gardiner is as good as married,” cried Lady Angleby.  “Cecil will be cruelly disappointed if you forbid him to speak to Miss Fairfax.  Pray, say nothing, at least until to-night is over.”

“I shall not interfere at the present point.  Let him use his own discretion, and incur a rebuff if he please.  But his visits to Abbotsmead are pleasant, and I would prefer not to have either Elizabeth annoyed or his visits given up.”

“You have used him so generously that whatever you wish must have his first consideration,” said Lady Angleby.  She was extremely surprised by the indulgent tone Mr. Fairfax assumed towards his granddaughter:  she would rather have seen him apply a stern authority to the management of that self-willed young lady, for there was no denial that he, quite as sincerely as herself, desired the alliance between their families.

Mr. Fairfax had not chosen a very opportune moment to trouble her ladyship’s mind with his own doubts.  She was always nervous on the eve of an entertainment at Brentwood, and this fresh anxiety agitated her to such a degree that Miss Burleigh suffered a martyrdom before her duty of superintendence over the preparations in ball-room and supper-room was accomplished.  Her aunt found time to tell her Mr. Fairfax’s opinions respecting his granddaughter, and she again found time to communicate them to her brother.  To her prodigious relief, he was not moved thereby.  He had a letter from Ryde in his pocket, apprising him on what day his dear Julia was to become Mrs. Brotherton; and he was in an elastic humor because of his late success—­just in the humor when a man of mature age and sense puts his trust in Fortune and expects to go on succeeding.  Perhaps he had not consciously endeavored to detach his thoughts from Julia, but a shade of retrospective reverie had fallen upon her image, and if she was lost to him, Elizabeth Fairfax was, of all other women he had known, the one he would prefer to take her place.  He was quite sure of this, though he was not in love.  The passive resistance that he had encountered from Miss Fairfax had not whetted his ardor much, but there was the natural spirit of man in him that hates defeat in any shape; and from his air and manner his sister deduced that in the midst of uncertainties shared by his best friends he still kept hold of hope.  Whether he might put his fate to the touch that night would, he said, depend on opportunity—­and impulse.