When Captain and Mrs. Pringle returned to Bayford to take leave, they found grandmamma so thoroughly at home, that Maria could find no words to express her gratitude.  Maria herself could hardly have been recognised, she had grown so like her husband in look and manner!  If her sentences did not always come to their legitimate development, they no longer seemed blown away by a frosty wind, but pushed aside by fresh kindly impulses, and her pride in the Captain, and the rest in his support, had set her at peace with all the world and with herself.  A comfortable, comely, happy matron was she, and even her few weeks beyond the precincts of Bayford had done something to enlarge her mind.

It was as if her education had newly begun.  The fixed aim, and the union with a practical man, had opened her faculties, not deficient in themselves, but contracted and nipped by the circumstances which she had not known how to turn to good account.  Such a fresh stage in middle life comes to some few, like the midsummer shoot to repair the foliage that has suffered a spring blight; but it cannot be reckoned on, and Mrs. Pringle would have been a more effective and self-possessed woman, a better companion to her husband, and with more root in herself, had Maria Meadows learnt to tune her nerves and her temper in the overthrow of her early hopes.

CHAPTER XIV.

Maurice Ferrars was a born architect, with such a love of brick and mortar, that it was meritorious in him not to have overbuilt Fairmead parsonage.  With the sense of giving him an agreeable holiday, his sister wrote to him in February that Gilbert’s little attic was at his service if he would come and give his counsel as to the building project.

Mr. Kendal disliked the trouble and disturbance as much as Maurice loved it; but he quite approved and submitted, provided they asked him no questions; he gave them free leave to ruin him, and set out to take Sophy for a drive, leaving the brother and sister to their calculations.  Of ruin, there was not much danger, Mr. Kendal had a handsome income, and had always lived within it; and Albinia’s fortune had not appeared to her a reason for increased expense, so there was a sufficient sum in hand to enable Mr. Ferrars to plan with freedom.

A new drawing-room, looking southwards, with bedrooms over it, was the matter of necessity; and Albinia wished for a bay-window, and would like to indulge Lucy by a conservatory, filling up the angle to the east with glass doors opening into the drawing-room and hall.  Maurice drew, and she admired, and thought all so delightful, that she began to be taken with scruples as to luxury.

‘No,’ said Maurice, ’these are not mere luxuries.  You have full means, and it is a duty to keep your household fairly comfortable and at ease.  Crowded as you are with rather incongruous elements, you are bound to give them space enough not to clash.’