idower. He seems very much taken
with Mrs. Grey," sighed the young man.

"Oh, is that it?" laughed Emma, as she ran away to take off her bonnet
and mantle.

And that Easter Sunday Mary Grey found herself again in a dilemma
between her two proposed victims--the gray-haired clergyman and the
raven-locked youth.

But she managed them both with so much adroitness that at the close of
the day, when Craven Kyte was riding slowly back to Wendover, he was
saying to himself:

"She is fond of me, after all; the beauty, the darling, the angel! Oh,
that such a perfect creature should be fond of me! I am at this moment
the very happiest man on earth!"

And later the same night, when the Rev. Dr. Jones laid his woolen
night-capped head upon his pillow, instead of going to sleep as the old
gentleman should have done, he lay awake and communed with himself as
follows:

"Poor child--poor child! A mere baby. And she _is_ penitent; sincerely
penitent. Oh, I can see that! And to think that she is not nearly so
much in fault as we believed her to be! She tells me that she really was
married to that man--married when she was a child only fourteen years of
age. So her gravest error was in running away to be married! And that
was the fault of the man who stole her, rather than of herself. And she
is as repentant for that fault as if it were some great crime. And oh,
how she has suffered! What she has gone through for one so young! And
she has such a tender, affectionate, clinging nature! Ah, what will
become of her, poor child--poor child! She ought to have some one to
take care of her. She ought indeed to be married, for no one but a
tender husband could take care of such a pretty, delicate, helpless
creature. She ought to marry some one much older than herself. Not a
green, beardless boy like that young puppy--Heaven forgive me!--I mean
that young man Kyte. He couldn't appreciate her, couldn't be a guide or
a guard to her. And she really needs guiding and guarding too. For see
how easily she falls into error. She ought to marry some good, wise,
elderly man, who could be her guide, philosopher and friend as well as
husband."

And so murmuring to himself he fell asleep to dream that he himself was
the model guide, philosopher and friend required by the young widow.

CHAPTER III.

A GROWL FROM UNCLE JACKY.

The next day, Easter Monday, brought a messenger from Lytton Lodge; a
messenger who was no other than Mithridates, co