“I am delighted to think that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you there,” said Crosbie.

“Indeed!” said Lady Julia.

“I am going to Courcy on Wednesday.  That, I fear, will be too early to allow of my being of any service to your ladyship.”

Lady Julia drew herself up, and declined the escort which Mr Crosbie had seemed to offer.  It grieved her to find that Lily Dale’s future husband was an intimate friend of her friend’s, and it especially grieved her to find that he was now going to that friend’s house.  It was a grief to her, and she showed that it was.  It also grieved Crosbie to find that Lady Julia was to be a fellow guest with himself at Courcy Castle; but he did not show it.  He expressed nothing but smiles and civil self-congratulation on the matter, pretending that he would have much delight in again meeting Lady Julia; but, in truth, he would have given much could he have invented any manoeuvre by which her ladyship might have been kept at home.

“What a horrid old woman she is,” said Lily, as they rode back down the avenue.  “I beg your pardon, Bernard; for, of course, she is your aunt.”

“Yes; she is my aunt; and though I am not very fond of her, I deny that she is a horrid old woman.  She never murdered anybody, or robbed anybody, or stole away any other woman’s lover.”

“I should think not,” said Lily.

“She says her prayers earnestly, I have no doubt,” continued Bernard, “and gives away money to the poor, and would sacrifice to-morrow any desire of her own to her brother’s wish.  I acknowledge that she is ugly, and pompous, and that, being a woman, she ought not to have such a long black beard on her upper lip.”

“I don’t care a bit about her beard,” said Lily.  “But why did she tell me to do my duty?  I didn’t go there to have a sermon preached to me.”

“And why did she talk about beauty being dangerous?” said Bell.  “Of course, we all knew what she meant.”

“I didn’t know at all what she meant,” said Lily, “and I don’t know now.”

“I think she’s a charming woman, and I shall be especially civil to her at Lady de Courcy’s,” said Crosbie.

And in this way, saying hard things of the poor old spinster whom they had left, they made their way into Guestwick, and again dismounted at Mrs Eames’s door.

CHAPTER XIII

A Visit to Guestwick

As the party from Allington rode up the narrow High Street of Guestwick, and across the market square towards the small, respectable, but very dull row of new houses in which Mrs Eames lived, the people of Guestwick were all aware that Miss Lily Dale was escorted by her future husband.  The opinion that she had been a very fortunate girl was certainly general among the Guestwickians, though it was not always expressed in open or generous terms.  “It was a great match for her,” some said, but shook