ernized the house, and laid out the garden--what I
should call very prettily, if it were not for my love of the old Dutch
one. They see a great deal of company, and go on in grand style.'

'How do you get on with them?'

'Oh! very well; I have dined there two or three times. He is a
good-natured fellow enough, and there are some nice children, whom I like
to meet with their nurses in the woods. I stood proxy for the last one's
sponsor; I could not undertake the office myself.'

'Good-natured!' exclaimed Nora. 'Why, you know how he behaved at St.
Wulstan's. No more than 5 pounds a year would he ever give to any
charity, though he was making thousands by those gin-shops.'

'Probably he thought he was doing very liberally.'

'Ay, there is no hope for St. Wulstan's till people have left off
thinking a guinea their duty, and five very handsome! and that Augusta
Mervyn should have gone and married our _bete noire_--our lord of
gin-palaces--I do think it must be on purpose for you to melt him. I
shall set you at him, Humfrey, next time Mr. Askew writes to me in
despair, that something won't go on for lack of means. Only I must be
quite sure that you won't give the money yourself, to spare the trouble
of dunning.'

'It is not fair to take other people's duties on oneself; besides, as
you'll find, Honor, the Holt purse is not bottomless.'

As she would find! This was a very odd way of making sure of her
beforehand, but she was not certain that she did not like it. It was
comfortable, and would save much preliminary.

The woods were bursting into spring: delicate, deeply creased leaves were
joyously emerging to the light on the birches, not yet devoid of the
silvery wool where they had been packed, the hazels were fluttering their
goslings, the palms were honey sweet with yellow tufts, the primroses
peeped out in the banks of moss.

'Oh! Humfrey, this is the great desire of my life fulfilled, to see the
Holt in the flush of spring!'

'I have always said you cared for the place more than any one,' said
Humfrey, evidently gratified, but with an expression which she did not
understand.

'As if I did not! But how strangely differently from my vision my wish
has been fulfilled.'

'How strangely!' he repeated, with even greater seriousness than had been
in her voice.

The meadow was bright with spring grass, the cattle grazing serenely as
in old times, the garden--ah! not quite so gay--either it was better in