business, coming two or three
times a week to smoke his pipe with William Carley, and paying Nelly some
awkward blundering compliment now and then in his deliberate hesitating
way. He had supreme confidence in his own position and his money, and was
troubled by no doubt as to the ultimate success of his suit. It was true
that Nelly treated him in by no means an encouraging manner--was, indeed,
positively uncivil to him at times; but this he supposed to be mere
feminine coquetry; and it enhanced the attractions of the girl he
designed to make his wife. As to her refusing him when the time came for
his proposal, he could not for a moment imagine such a thing possible. It
was not in the nature of any woman to refuse to be mistress of Wyncomb,
and to drive her own whitechapel cart--a comfortable hooded vehicle of
the wagonette species, which was popular in those parts.

So Stephen Whitelaw took his time, contented to behold the object of his
affection two or three evenings a week, and to gaze admiringly upon her
beauty as he smoked his pipe in the snug little oak-wainscoted parlour at
the Grange, while his passion grew day by day, until it did really become
a very absorbing feeling, second only to his love of money and Wyncomb
Farm. These dull sluggish natures are capable of deeper passions than the
world gives them credit for; and are as slow to abandon an idea as they
are to entertain it.

It was Ellen Carley's delight to tell Marian of her trouble, and to
protest to this kind confidante again and again that no persuasion or
threats of her father's should ever induce her to marry Stephen
Whitelaw--which resolution Mrs. Holbrook fully approved. There was a
little gate opening from a broad green lane into one of the fields at the
back of the Grange; and here sometimes of a summer evening they used to
find Frank Randall, who had ridden his father's white pony all the way
from Malsham for the sake of smoking his evening cigar on that particular
spot. They used to find him seated there, smoking lazily, while the pony
cropped the grass in the lane close at hand. He was always eager to do
any little service for Mrs. Holbrook; to bring her books or anything else
she wanted from Malsham--anything that might make an excuse for his
coming again by appointment, and with the certainty of seeing Ellen
Carley. It was only natural that Marian should be inclined to protect
this simple love-affair, which offered her favourite a way of esc