She did go to bed, and Mrs Trevelyan explained to the two ladies as much as was necessary of what had occurred.  When Mrs Stanbury came to understand that the gentleman who had been closeted with her would, probably, in a few months be a lord himself, that he was a very rich man, a member of Parliament, and one of those who are decidedly born with gold spoons in their mouths, and understood also that Nora Rowley had refused him, she was lost in amazement.  Mr Glascock was about forty years of age, and appeared to Nora Rowley, who was nearly twenty years his junior, to be almost an old man.  But to Mrs Stanbury, who was over sixty, Mr Glascock seemed to be quite in the flower of his age.  The bald place at the top of his head simply showed that he had passed his boyhood, and the grey hairs at the back of his whiskers were no more than outward signs of manly discretion.  She could not understand why any girl should refuse such an offer, unless the man were himself bad in morals, or in temper.  But Mrs Trevelyan had told her while Nora and Mr Glascock were closeted together, that he was believed by them all to be good and gentle.  Nevertheless she felt a considerable increase of respect for a young lady who had refused the eldest son of a lord.  Priscilla, when she heard what had occurred, expressed to her mother a moderated approval.  According to her views a girl would much more often be right to refuse an offer of marriage than to accept it, let him who made the offer be who he might.  And the fact of the man having been sent away with a refusal somewhat softened Priscilla’s anger at his coming there at all.

‘I suppose he is a goose,’ said she to her mother, ’and I hope there won’t be any more of this kind running after them while they are with us.’

Nora, when she was alone, wept till her heart was almost broken.  It was done, and the man was gone, and the thing was over.  She had quite sufficient knowledge of the world to realise perfectly the difference between such a position as that which had been offered to her, and the position which in all probability she would now be called upon to fill.  She had had her chance, and Fortune had placed great things at her disposal.  It must said of her also that the great things which Fortune had offered to her were treasures very valuable in her eyes.  Whether it be right and wise to covet or to desire wealth and rank, there was no doubt but that she coveted them.  She had been instructed to believe in them, and she did believe in them.  In some mysterious manner of which she herself knew nothing, taught by some preceptor the nobility of whose lessons she had not recognised though she had accepted them, she had learned other things also:  to revere truth and love, and to be ambitious as regarded herself of conferring the gift of her whole heart upon some one whom she could worship as a hero.  She had spoken the simple truth when she had told her sister that she had been willing to sell herself to the devil, but that she