, cut him off
from the companionship of his fellow-men.

Two years ago, before Mary emerged from her Tomboyhood, she would have
thought very little of letting herself out of the loft window and
clambering down the side of the stable, which was well furnished with
those projections in the way of gutters, drain-pipes, and century-old
ivy, which make such a descent easy. Two years ago Mary's light figure
would have swung itself down among the ivy leaves, and she would have
gloried in the thought of circumventing James Steadman so easily. But
now Mary was a young lady--a young lady engaged to be married, and
impressed with the responsibilities of her position, deeply sensible of
a new dignity, for the preservation of which she was in a manner
answerable to her lover.

'What would _he_ think of me if I went scrambling down the ivy?' she
asked herself; 'and after he has approved of Steadman's heartless
restrictions, it would be rank rebellion against him if I were to do it.
Poor old man, "Thou art so near and yet so far," as Lesbia's song says.'

She blew a kiss on the tips of her fingers towards that sad solitary
figure, and then dropped back into the dusty duskiness of the loft. But
although her new ideas upon the subject of 'Anstand'--or good
behaviour--prevented her getting the better of Steadman by foul means,
she was all the more intent upon having her own way by fair means, now
that the impression of the old man's sadness and solitude had been
renewed by the sight of the drooping figure by the sundial.

She went back to the house, and walked straight to her grandmother's
room. Lady Maulevrier's couch had been placed in front of the open
window, from which she was watching the westward-sloping sun above the
long line of hills, dark Helvellyn, rugged Nabb Scarr, and verdant
Fairfield, with its two giant arms stretched out to enfold and shelter
the smiling valley.

'Heavens! child, what an object you are;' exclaimed her ladyship, as
Mary drew near. 'Why, your gown is all over dust, and your hair is--why
your hair is sprinkled with hay and clover. I thought you had learnt to
be tidy, since your engagement. What have you been doing with yourself?'

'I have been up in the hayloft,' answered Mary, frankly; and, intent on
one idea, she said impetuously, 'Dear grandmother, I want you to do me a
favour--a very great favour. There is a poor old man, a relation of
Steadman's, who lives with him, out of his mind, but quite ha