Dear Aunt Kitty!  One of her failings was never to be able to keep a letter to herself.  She fairly cried over her boy’s troubles; and Mrs. Ponsonby would not have known whether to laugh or cry but for James’s doleful predictions, which were so sentimental as to turn even his grandmother to the laughing party, and left him no sympathizer but Mary, who thought it very hard and cruel to deride Louis when he was trying so earnestly to be good and suffering so much.  Why should they all—­Aunt Catharine herself—­be merry over his thinking the spring-days of his life past away, and trying so nobly and patiently to resign himself?

‘It is the way of the world, Mary,’ said James.  ’People think they are laughing at the mistaking a flock of sheep for the army of Pentapolin of the naked arm, when they are really sneering at the lofty spirit taking the weaker side.  They involve the sublime temper in the ridiculous accident, and laugh both alike to scorn.’

‘Not mamma and Aunt Catharine,’ said Mary.  ’Besides, is not half the harm in the world done by not seeing where the sublime is invaded by the ridiculous?’

‘I see nothing ridiculous in the matter,’ said James.  ’His father has demanded an unjustifiable sacrifice.  Fitzjocelyn yields and suffers.’

’I do believe Lord Ormersfield must relent; you see how pleased he is, saying that Louis’s conduct is exemplary.’

‘He would sacrifice a dozen sons to one prejudice!’

’Perhaps Miss Conway will overcome the prejudice.  I am sure, if he thinks Louis’s conduct exemplary, Louis must have the sort of happiness he used to wish for most, and his father would do his very best to gratify him.’

That sentence was Mary’s cheval de bataille in her discussions with James, who could never be alone with her without broaching the subject.  The two cousins often walked together during James’s month at Northwold.  The town church was not very efficiently served, and was only opened in the morning and late evening on Sundays, without any afternoon prayers, and James was often in the habit of walking to Ormersfield church for the three o’clock service, and asking Mary to join him.  Their return was almost always occupied in descriptions of Miss Conway’s perfections, and Mary learnt to believe that two beings, evidently compounded of every creature’s best, must be destined for each other.

‘How well it is,’ she thought, ’that I did not stand in the way.  Oh! how unhappy and puzzled I should be now.  How thankful I am that dear mamma understood all for us so well!  How glad I am that Louis is waiting patiently, not doing anything self-willed.  As long as his father says he is exemplary, it must make one happy, and mamma will convince Lord Ormersfield.  It will all turn out well; and how delightful it will be to see him quite happy and settled!’