or the poor
gentleman neither. 'I didn't see her, nurse,' says he, 'but there's a
bit of her own sweet fingers' work.' And sure enough, I knew it, for
it was a knot of the very ribbon you had in your hair the day I came to
talk to your sister about the journey."

"That was what Amy told me she gave him."

"Nothing loth would he be to take it, miss! Though says he, 'Don't you
let my mother know I have tracked her, nurse,' says he. 'It is plain
enough why she gives out that I am not to go near my uncle, and if she
guessed where I had been, she would have some of her fancies.' 'Now your
Honour, my dear,' says I, 'you'll excuse your old nurse, but her sister
put her in my charge, and though I bless Heaven that you are no young
rake, yet you will be bringing trouble untold on her and hers if you go
down there a courting of her unbeknownst.' 'No danger of that, nurse,'
says he; 'why there's a she-dragon down there (meaning Mrs. Aylward)
that was ready to drive me out of my own house when I did but speak of
waiting to see her.'"

"No, I am glad he will not come again. Yet it makes his uncle happy to
see him. I will keep out of the way if he does."

"Right too, miss. A young lady never loses by discretion."

"Oh, do not speak in--in that way," said Aurelia, blushing at
the implication. "Besides, he is going home with my Lady to dear
Carminster."

"No, no, he remains with his regiment in town, unless he rides down
later when he can have his leave of absence, and my Lady is at the Bath.
He will not if he can help it, for he is dead set against the young lady
they want to marry him to, and she is to be there. What! you have not
heard? It is my Lady Arabella, sister to that there Colonel as is more
about our house than I could wish. She is not by the same mother as him
and my Lord Aresfield. Her father married a great heiress for his second
wife, whose father had made a great fortune by victualling the army in
the war time. Not that this Dowager Countess, as they call her, is a
bit like the real quality, so that it is a marvel how my Lady can put up
with her; only money-bags will make anything go down, more's the pity,
and my Lady is pressed, you see, with her losses at play. It was about
this match that Sir Amyas was sent down to Battlefield, the Countess's
place in Monmouthshire, when he came to Carminster last summer, and his
body servant, Mr. Grey, that has been about him from a child, told me
all about it. This Lady Bel