, was still unmarried, and at home at Cloudesly
Hall, where her aunt, Lady Harbottle, lived with her, and made a
dignified chaperon.

Now it so fell out that Sir Bale, having business at Carlisle, and
knowing old Lady Harbottle, paid his respects at Cloudesly Hall; and
being no less than five-and-forty years of age, was for the first time
in his life, seriously in love.

Miss Janet was extremely pretty--a fair beauty with brilliant red lips
and large blue eyes, and ever so many pretty dimples when she talked and
smiled. It was odd, but not perhaps against the course of nature, that a
man, though so old as he, and quite _blase_, should fall at last under
that fascination.

But what are we to say of the strange infatuation of the young lady? No
one could tell why she liked him. It was a craze. Her family were
against it, her intimates, her old nurse--all would not do; and the
oddest thing was, that he seemed to take no pains to please her. The end
of this strange courtship was that he married her; and she came home to
Mardykes Hall, determined to please everybody, and to be the happiest
woman in England.

With her came a female cousin, a good deal her senior, past
thirty--Gertrude Mainyard, pale and sad, but very gentle, and with all
the prettiness that can belong to her years.

This young lady has a romance. Her hero is far away in India; and she,
content to await his uncertain return with means to accomplish the hope
of their lives, in that frail chance has long embarked all the purpose
and love of her life.

When Lady Mardykes came home, a new leaf was, as the phrase is, turned
over. The neighbours and all the country people were willing to give the
Hall a new trial. There was visiting and returning of visits; and young
Lady Mardykes was liked and admired. It could not indeed have been
otherwise. But here the improvement in the relations of Mardykes Hall
with other homes ceased. On one excuse or another Sir Bale postponed or
evaded the hospitalities which establish intimacies. Some people said he
was jealous of his young and beautiful wife. But for the most part his
reserve was set down to the old inhospitable cause, some ungenial defect
in his character; and in a little time the tramp of horses and roll of
carriage-wheels were seldom heard up or down the broad avenue of
Mardykes Hall.

Sir Bale liked this seclusion; and his wife, "so infatuated with her
idolatry of that graceless old man," as surrounding youn