told; for, to do Mary justice,
she did not leave her hand in Frank's a moment longer than she could
help herself.

Frank, feeling the hand withdrawn, and hearing, when it was too late,
the step on the gravel, turned sharply round. "Oh, it's you, is it,
Augusta? Well, what do you want?"

Augusta was not naturally very ill-natured, seeing that in her veins
the high de Courcy blood was somewhat tempered by an admixture of
the Gresham attributes; nor was she predisposed to make her brother
her enemy by publishing to the world any of his little tender
peccadilloes; but she could not but bethink herself of what her aunt
had been saying as to the danger of any such encounters as that she
just now had beheld; she could not but start at seeing her brother
thus, on the very brink of the precipice of which the countess had
specially forewarned her mother. She, Augusta, was, as she well knew,
doing her duty by her family by marrying a tailor's son for whom she
did not care a chip, seeing the tailor's son was possessed of untold
wealth. Now when one member of a household is making a struggle for a
family, it is painful to see the benefit of that struggle negatived
by the folly of another member. The future Mrs Moffat did feel
aggrieved by the fatuity of the young heir, and, consequently, took
upon herself to look as much like her Aunt de Courcy as she could do.

"Well, what is it?" said Frank, looking rather disgusted. "What makes
you stick your chin up and look in that way?" Frank had hitherto been
rather a despot among his sisters, and forgot that the eldest of
them was now passing altogether from under his sway to that of the
tailor's son.

"Frank," said Augusta, in a tone of voice which did honour to the
great lessons she had lately received. "Aunt de Courcy wants to see
you immediately in the small drawing-room;" and, as she said so, she
resolved to say a few words of advice to Miss Thorne as soon as her
brother should have left them.

"In the small drawing-room, does she? Well, Mary, we may as well go
together, for I suppose it is tea-time now."

"You had better go at once, Frank," said Augusta; "the countess will
be angry if you keep her waiting. She has been expecting you these
twenty minutes. Mary Thorne and I can return together."

There was something in the tone in which the words, "Mary Thorne,"
were uttered, which made Mary at once draw herself up. "I hope," said
she, "that Mary Thorne will never be any hindran