’Isabel!  Isabel! why are you making mysteries?  I do not wish to pry into your affairs.  I would have trusted you anywhere; but when it comes round to me that you have been sending a private messenger to one of the young gentlemen there, I don’t know what to be at!  I would not believe Mrs. Mansell at first; but I saw the boy, and he said you had sent him yourself.  My dear, you may mean, very rightly -I am sure you do, but you must not set people talking!  It is not acting rightly by me, Isabel; but I would not care for that, if it were acting rightly by yourself.’  And he gazed at her with a piteous, perplexed expression.

‘Let me call mamma,’ said Isabel.

’As you will, my dear, but cannot you let the simple truth come out between you and your own blood-relation, without all her words to come between?  Can’t you, Isabel?  I am sure you and I shall understand each other.’

‘That we shall,’ replied Isabel, warmly.  ’I have given her no promise.  Dear Mr. Mansell, I have wished all along that you should know that I am engaged, with her full consent, to Mr. Frost Dynevor.’

‘To the little black tutor!’ cried Mr. Mansell, recoiling, but recollecting himself.  ’I beg your pardon, my dear, he may be a very good man, but what becomes of all this scrambling over barricades with the young Lord?’

Isabel described the true history of her engagement; and it was received with a long, low whistle, by no means too complimentary.

’And what makes him come and hide in holes and corners, if this is all with your mamma’s good will?’

’Mamma thought you would be displeased; she insisted on taking her own time for breaking it to you,’ said Isabel.

’Was there ever a woman but must have her mystery?  Well, I should have liked him better if he had not given into it!’

‘He never did!’ said Isabel, indignant enough to disclose in full the whole arrangement made by Lady Conway’s manoeuvres and lax good-nature.  ‘I knew it would never do,’ she added, ’though I could not say so before her and Fitzjocelyn.  My note was to tell them so:  and look here, Mr. Mansell, this is what Mr. Dynevor had already written before receiving mine.’

She held it out proudly; and Mr. Manaell, making an unwilling sound between his teeth, took it from her; but, as he read, his countenance changed, and he exclaimed, ’Ha! very well!  This is something like!  So that’s it, is it?  You and he would not combine to cheat the old man, like a pair of lovers in a trumpery novel!’

‘No, indeed!’ said Isabel, ‘that would be a bad way of beginning.’

’Where is the young fellow?—­at Ebbscreek, did you say?  I’ll tell you what, Isabel,’ with his hand on the bell, ’I’ll have out the dogcart this minute, and fetch him home to breakfast, to meet my Lady when she comes down stairs, if it be only for the sake of showing that I like plain dealing!’