hen that sort loves a
woman he generally finds she's not unwilling to meet him halfway. I
believe now that my niece can't help caring for the man, but all the
time she's secretly ashamed of herself--yes, heartily ashamed--for
finding another in her mind only six months after the death of
Pendean."

Mark asked a question.

"When you say that her husband altered his wife's character, in what
way did he do so!"

"Well--he taught her sense I reckon. You'd never think now, would
you, that she was a red Redmayne--one of us--short of temper,
peppery, fiery? But she was, as a youngster. Her father had the
Redmayne qualities more developed than any of us and he handed 'em
down. She was a wilful thing--plucky and fond of mischief. Her
school fellows thought the world of her because she laughed at
discipline; and from one school she got expelled for some frolics.
That was the girl I remembered when Jenny came back to me a widow.
And so I see that Michael Pendean, what ever else he was, evidently
had the trick character to learn her a bit of sense and patience."

"It may be natural development of years and experience, combined
with the sudden, awful shock of her husband's death. These things
would unite to tone her down and perhaps break her spirit, if only
for a time."

"True. But she's not a sober-sided woman for all her calm. She was
too full of the joy of life for Pendean, or any man, to empty it all
out of her in four years. He may have been one of the Wesleyan sort,
like such a lot of the Cornish; he may have been a kill-joy, too;
but whether he was or not, he hadn't quite converted her in the
time, and what I'm seeing now, I judge, is the young woman slowly
coming back to herself under the influence of this Latin chap. He's
cunning, too. He knows how to tickle her vanity, for even she has
got a bit of womanly conceit in her, though less vain of her
wonderful face no woman could be. But Doria has taken good care to
hint his ambition is well lost for love; he's dropped it very
cleverly no doubt and already made her see which way he's steering.
He's put Jenny before the dollars and the dreams of the castle down
south. In a word, if I'm not a greenhorn, he'll ask her to marry him
as soon as a year is told and he can touch the subject decently."

"And you think she will accept him, Mr. Redmayne?"

"At present I'd take long odds about it; but he's a volatile devil
and may change by that time."

Then Bendigo in his turn