so.  To such a length had his confidence in the success of his plans gone, that he had never in any way hinted them to his daughter—­the thing was settled, and had become a part of the course of nature, in no way requiring to be discussed.  Under these circumstances, Mary spent two years of grown-up life at home.  They were very wearisome and depressing years, partly from her position, partly from her strong, and always growing, dislike to the cousin, who was so much more to her father than she was.  She saw very few people; now and then she went with her father to a dinner-party where most of the guests were “grave and reverend seigniors” like himself; now and then to a dance, where people were civil to her, and where some stranger in the neighbourhood would occasionally show signs of incipient admiration, pleasantly exciting to a girl in her teens.  And now and then she had to receive visitors at home, feeling constrained and annoyed while she did so, by the invariable presence of George.  There were neighbours who would gladly have been good to her.  It was common for mothers to say to each other, “Poor Mary Wynter!  I should like to ask here more, but I really dare not, Mr. Wynter is so odd,”—­and Mary had even a certain consciousness of this goodwill and its suppression; but there were other sayings, common as household words, among these same people, of which she had no suspicion.  It would, perhaps, have changed the whole story of her life, if she had known that the reason why she lived as much apart from the whole region of lovemaking or flirtation as if she had been a staid matron of fifty, was, the general belief that she was engaged, and before long to be married to the one man in the world whom she cordially hated.  If she had known it then, she might, perhaps, have found a substitute for her cousin among her own equals and countrymen, but her entire unconsciousness, which they could not suspect, so deceived every possible lover as to make them believe her utterly out of their reach.

The only real enjoyment which brightened these dull years, came to Mary when she visited an old school-friend.  There were two or three with whom she had kept up affectionate intercourse; and one, especially, whose house was her refuge whenever she could get permission to spend a week away from home.  This girl had married at the very time of Mary’s leaving school—­she lived much in the world, and would have carried Mary into the whirl of dissipation if Mr. Wynter had allowed it.  But he had restricted his daughter’s visits to those times of the year when Helen Churchill and her husband were in the country, fatigued and glad of a few weeks of quiet; there Mary went to them, and found their quiet livelier than the liveliest of her home-life.