“No, indeed, he did not mention any such thing, or I should have shown him how unadvisable—­”

“You mistake me.  It is I who wish to be married from my father’s house by good old Dr. Fynes.  He married my parents, and he christened me, and now he shall marry me.”

“I approve that, of course, since you wish it; but, my own dearest Grace, Woodbine Villa is associated with so many painful memories—­let me advise, let me earnestly entreat you, not to select it as the place to be married from.  Dr. Fynes can be invited here.”

“I have set my heart on it,” said Grace.  “Pray do not thwart me in it.”

“I should be very sorry to thwart you in any thing.  But, before you finally decide, pray let me try and convince your better judgment.”

“I have decided; and I have written to Dr. Fynes, and to the few persons I mean to invite.  They can’t all come here; and I have asked Mr. Raby; and it is my own desire; and it is one of those things the lady and her family always decide.  I have no wish to be married at all.  I only marry to please my father and you.  There, let us say no more about it, please.  I will not be married at Woodbine Villa, nor anywhere else.  I wish papa and you would show your love by burying me instead.”

These words, and the wild panting way they were uttered in, brought Coventry to his knees in a moment.  He promised her, with abject submission, that she should have her own way in this and every thing.  He petted her, and soothed her, and she forgave him, but so little graciously, that he saw she would fly out in a moment again, if the least attempt were made to shake her resolution.

Grace talked the matter over with Mr. Carden, and that same evening he begged Coventry to leave the Villa as soon as he conveniently could, for he and his daughter must be there a week before the wedding, and invite some relations, whom it was his interest to treat with respect.

“You will spare me a corner,” said Coventry, in his most insinuating tone.  “Dear Woodbine!  I could not bear to leave it.”

“Oh, of course you can stay there till we actually come; but we can’t have the bride and bridegroom under one roof.  Why, my dear fellow, you know better than that.”

There was no help for it.  It sickened him with fears of what might happen in those few fatal days, during which Mr. Carden, Grace herself, and a household over which he had no control, would occupy the house, and would receive the Postman, whose very face showed him incorruptible.

He stayed till the last moment; stopped a letter of five lines from Little, in which he said he should be in New York very soon, en route for England; and the very next day he received the Cardens, with a smiling countenance and a fainting heart, and then vacated the premises.  He ordered Lally to hang about the Villa at certain hours when the post came in, and do his best.  But his was catching at a straw.  His real hope was that neither Little himself, nor a letter in his handwriting, might come in that short interval.