“I just saw her,—­but could hardly say much.  She had written to my aunt about going to Cheltenham.”

“I saw the letter before she sent it, Mr. Morton.”

“So she told me.  My aunt would be delighted to have her, but it seems that Mrs. Masters does not wish her to go.”

“There is some trouble about it, Mr. Morton;—­but I may as well tell you at once that I wish her to go.  She would be better for awhile at Cheltenham with such a lady as your aunt than she can be at home.  Her stepmother and she cannot agree on a certain point.  I dare say you know what it is, Mr. Morton?”

“In regard, I suppose, to Mr. Twentyman?”

“Just that.  Mrs. Masters thinks that Mr. Twentyman would make an excellent husband.  And so do I. There’s nothing in the world against him, and as compared with me he’s a rich man.  I couldn’t give the poor girl any fortune, and he wouldn’t want any.  But money isn’t everything.”

“No indeed.”

“He’s an industrious steady young man too, and he has had my word with him all through.  But I can’t compel my girl to marry him if she don’t like him.  I can’t even try to compel her.  She’s as good a girl as ever stirred about a house.”

“I can well believe that”

“And nothing would take such a load off me as to know that she was going to be well married.  But as she don’t like the young man well enough, I won’t have her hardly used.”

“Mrs. Masters perhaps is hard to her.”

“God forbid I should say anything against my wife.  I never did, and I won’t now.  But Mary will be better away; and if Lady Ushant will be good enough to take her, she shall go.”

“When will she be ready, Mr. Masters?”

“I must ask her about that;—­in a week perhaps, or ten days.”

“She is quite decided against the young man?”

“Quite.  At the bidding of all of us she said she’d take two months to think of it.  But before the time was up she wrote to him to say it could never be.  It quite upset my wife; because it would have been such an excellent arrangement”

Reginald wished to learn more but hardly knew how to ask the father questions.  Yet, as he had been trusted so far, he thought that he might be trusted altogether.  “I must own,” he said, “that I think that Mr. Twentyman would hardly be a fit husband for your daughter.”

“He is a very good young man.”

“Very likely;—­but she is something more than a very good young woman.  A young lady with her gifts will be sure to settle well in life some day.”  The attorney shook his head.  He had lived long enough to see many young ladies with good gifts find it difficult to settle in life; and perhaps that mysterious poem which Reginald found in Mary’s eyes was neither visible nor audible to Mary’s father.  “I did hear,” said Reginald, “that Mr. Surtees—­”

“There’s nothing in that.”

“Oh, indeed.  I thought that perhaps as she is so determined not to do as her friends would wish, that there might be something else.”  He said this almost as a question, looking close into the attorney’s eyes as he spoke.