ng the tie which had existed between
Lord Iniscrone's aunt and Miss Gray, Lord and Lady Iniscrone could never
be without interest in Miss Gray's progress.

Mary smiled a smile of fine humour over the reading of the letter. At
first she was in the mood to refuse. But, being her father's daughter,
and so endowed with that sense of the comedy as well as the tragedy of
life which makes it easy to regard things and persons equably, she
consented at last. She would have preferred to be married from Wistaria
Terrace, but she had no difficulty in making a concession to Robin's
mother.

So the wedding-breakfast was spread in the dining-room where she and
Lady Anne used to have their meals together. Mrs. Gray held a terrified
reception of the few fine folk whom Lady Drummond had declared it
necessary to ask in the long drawing-room with the three windows where
Lady Anne used to sit with little Fifine in her lap.

Mary had wished to be married from the poor little house where she had
grown up, but on her wedding day she felt that she had done as Lady Anne
would have wished. There was nothing changed in the house: the
old-fashioned substantial furniture, the faded carpets and curtains,
were just the same. There were one or two familiar faces among the
servants. After all, Lord and Lady Iniscrone had used the house little,
since Lord Iniscrone had developed a chest affection which kept him
following the sun round the world for three-fourths of the year.

The marriage had taken place earlier at the big, dim old church behind
which Wistaria Terrace hid itself away, and the few fine folk were not
bidden to the wedding but to the reception. A great many glittering
things were spread out on the tables in the long drawing-room. It was
surprising how many well-wishers the new Lady Drummond seemed to have in
the great world. Sir Denis Drummond had come over for the wedding, and
Nelly was a bridesmaid, with Mary's type-writing sister, Marcella. She
was a different Nelly from her of a couple of months earlier, her
delicacy gone, her old pretty bloom come back, her eyes bright as of
old.

"Mrs. Langrishe wants me to return to her!" she confided to Mary, "but
we are going to Sherwood Square. You know, _he_ is on his way home. In a
week or two he will be on the sea. He must come to me, not find me there
waiting for him. Do you know, Mary, that though his mother and sister
have taken me to their hearts, he has not written me a line? You don'