Albinia felt sure he could mean only one great change, but they were now at Mrs. Meadows’s door, and Maria wished them good night, giving a most grateful squeeze of the hand to Mrs. Kendal.

‘Where are you bound now?’ asked the captain.

‘Back to the vicarage, to take up my husband and the girls,’ said Albinia, ‘but good night.  I am not afraid.’

The captain, however, chose to continue a squire of dames, and walked at her side, presently giving utterance to a sound of commiseration.  ’Ah! well, poor Maria, I never thought to see her so altered.  Why, she had the prettiest bloom—­I dare say you remember—­but, I beg your pardon, somehow I thought you were her elder sister.’

‘Mr. Kendal’s first wife was,’ said Albinia, pitying the poor man; but Captain Pringle was not a man for awkwardness, and the short whistle with which he received her answer set her off laughing.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, recovering himself; ’but you see I am all astray, like a man buried and dug up again, so no wonder I make strange blunders; and my poor uncle is grown so childish, that he does not know one person from another, and began by telling me Maria Meadows had married and gone out to India.  I had not had a letter these seven years, so I thought it was high time to bring my boy home, and renew old times, though how I am ever to go back without him—­’

‘Is be your only one?’

’Yes.  I lost his mother when he was six years old, and we have been all the world to each other since, till I began to think I was spoiling him outright, and it was time he should see what Old England was made of.’

Albinia had something like a discovery to impart now; but she hated the sense of speculating on the poor man’s intentions.  He talked so much, that he saved her trouble in replying, and presently resumed the subject of Maria’s looks.

‘She has had a harassed life, I fear,’ said Albinia.

’Eh! old Meadows was a terrible old tyrant, I believe; but she was his pet.  I thought he refused her nothing—­but there’s no trusting such a Turk!  Oh! ah!  I dare say,’ as if replying to something within.  And then having come to the vicarage wicket, Albinia took leave of him and ran indoors, answering the astonished queries as to how she had been employed, ’Walking home with Aunt Maria and Captain Pringle !’

It was rather a relief at such a juncture that Lucy’s curious eyes should be removed.  Mr. Ferrars came to talk his wife’s state over with his sister.  Her children were too much for Winifred, and he wished to borrow Lucy for a few weeks, till a governess could be found for them.

It struck Albinia that this would be an excellent thing for Genevieve Durant, and she at once contrived to ask her to tea, and privately propound the plan.

Genevieve faltered much of thanks, and said that Madame was very good; but the next morning a note was brought in, which caused a sudden change of countenance: