‘Oh! if Mary is with him, I don’t care,’ said Aunt Catharine, sitting down to her knitting; but her ball seemed restless, and while she pursued it, she broke out into a little laugh, and exclaimed, ’I beg your pardon, my dear, but I cannot help it.  I never heard anything so funny!’

‘As this scheme,’ said Mrs. Ponsonby, with a little hesitation.

‘Then you have the other side of it in your letter,’ cried Mrs. Frost, giving way to her merriment.  ’The Arabian Nights themselves, the two viziers laying their heads together, and sending home orders to us to make up the match!’

‘My letter does not go so far,’ said Mrs. Ponsonby, amused, but anxious.

’Yours is the lady’s side.  My orders are precise.  Oliver has talked it over with Mr. Ponsonby, and finds the connexion would be agreeable; so he issues a decree that his nephew, Roland Dynevor—­ (poor Jem—­he would not know himself!)—­should enter on no profession, but forthwith pay his addresses to Miss Ponsonby, since he will shortly be in a position befitting the heir of our family!’

‘You leave Prince Roland in happy ignorance,’ said Mrs. Ponsonby, blushing a little.

’Certainly—­or he would fly off like a sky-rocket at the first symptom of the princess.’

’Then I think we need not alter our plans.  All that Mary’s father tells me is, that he does not intend to return home as yet, though his successor is appointed, since he is much occupied by this new partnership with Oliver, and expects that the investment will be successful.  He quite approves of our living at the Terrace, especially as he thinks I ought to be informed that Oliver has declared his intentions with regard to his nephew, and so if anything should arise between the young people, I am not to discourage it.’

‘Mary is in request,’ said Mrs. Frost, slyly, and as she met Mrs. Ponsonby’s eyes full of uneasy inquiry.  ’You don’t mean that you have not observed at least his elder lordship’s most decided courtship?  Don’t be too innocent, my dear.’

’Pray don’t say so, Aunt Kitty, or you will make me uncomfortable in staying here.  If the like ever crossed his mind, he must perceive that the two are just what we were together ourselves.’

‘That might make him wish it the more,’ Aunt Catharine had almost said, but she restrained it halfway, and said, ’Louis is hardly come to the time of life for a grande passion.’

’True.  He is wonderfully young, and Mary not only seems much older, but is by no means the girl to attract a mere youth.  I rather suspect she will have no courtship but from the elders.’

’In spite of her opportunities.  What would some mammas—­Lord Ormersfield’s bugbear, for instance, Lady Conway—­give for such a chance!  Three months of a lame young Lord, and such a lame young Lord as my Louis!’

‘I might have feared,’ said Mrs. Ponsonby, ’if Mary were not so perfectly simple.  Aunt Melicent managed to abstract all romance, and I never regretted it so little.  She has looked after him merely because it came in her way as a form of kindness, and is too much his governess for anything of the other sort.’