The grating of wheels called her attention to the fact that a smart, yellow-wheeled dogcart had been driven into the station yard by a man in livery.

“Be you Miss Keeves, miss?” asked the servant.

“Yes.”

“Then you’re for Melkbridge House.  Please get in, miss.”

Mavis clambered into the cart and was driven quickly from the station.  At the top of the hill, they turned sharp to the right, and rolled along the Bathminster road.  Mavis first noticed how much the town had been added to since she had last set foot in it; then she became conscious that distances, which in her childhood had seemed to be considerable, were now trivial.

The man driving her had been a gentleman’s servant; seeing that Mavis belonged to a class of life which he had been accustomed to serve, he treated her with becoming respect.  Mavis incorrectly argued from the man’s deference that it had been decided to secure her services:  her heart leapt, her colour heightened at her good fortune.

If a few moments of pleasure are worth purchasing at a cost of many hours of crowded disappointment, it was as well that Mavis was ignorant of the way in which her prospects had been prejudiced by the trend of events at Melkbridge House since Mrs Devitt had replied to Miss Mee’s letter.  To begin with, Mavis’s visit had been within an ace of being indefinitely postponed; it was owing to Harold’s expressed wish that the original appointment had been allowed to stand.  The reason for this indifference to Mavis’s immediate future was that, the day after the schoolmistress had written, Harold had been seriously indisposed.  His symptoms were so alarming that his doctor had insisted on having a further opinion; this was obtained from a Bathminster physician, who had confirmed the local medical man’s diagnosis; he had also advised Harold a month’s rest on his back, this to be followed by a nine months’ residence abroad.  As if this were not enough to interfere with Mavis’s visit, Montague Devitt had met young Sir Archibald Windebank, the bachelor owner of Haycock.  Abbey, when going to discharge his duties as borough magistrate, the performance of which he believed might ease his mind of the pain occasioned by his son’s illness.

After he had told Windebank his bad news, and the latter had expressed his genuine concern, Devitt had said: 

“Do you remember Keeves—­Colonel Keeves?”

“Of Melkbridge Court?  Of course.  Why?”

“I heard something of his daughter the other day.”

“Little Mavis!”

“She’s big Mavis now,” remarked Devitt.

“Have you seen her?” asked Windebank eagerly.

“Not yet, but I may very soon.”

“She promised to be an awfully pretty girl.  Is she?”

“I haven’t seen her.  But if she comes down you might care to call.”

“Thanks,” replied Windebank.  “When you see her, you might mention I asked after her.”