dear, for my sake, and for our poor dear
Peter's sake, who's gone."

No; Laura could not go quite so far in heroic self-sacrifice as that;
but she did promise solemnly, that however many times Joseph might say
he was dying for her, she would--what? She would promise to decide
nothing till she had been to Paris.

She was very happy that morning; Amelia had not made game of her, and
there had been such a scene. Laura enjoyed a scene; and Amelia had
pleaded so hard and so long with her for that promise. At last she had
given it. If she had not been such a remarkably foolish woman, she would
have known she was glad on the whole that the promise had been extorted
from her. As it was she thought she was sorry, but after a little more
urging and pleading she gave up the precious valentine, and saw it
devoured by the flames. It had a Birmingham postmark, and Mrs. Melcombe
heard with pleasure that Joseph would be away at least a fortnight.

Laura had wanted a little excitement, just the least amusement; and if
not that, just the least recognition of her place in nature as a woman,
and a young one. At present, her imagination had not been long at work
on this unpromising payer of the tribute. If some one, whose household
ways and daily English were like her own, had come forward she would
soon have forgotten Joseph; for he himself, as an individual, was almost
nothing to her, it was only in his having paid the tribute that his
power lay.

Late in the afternoon Mr. Augustus Mortimer arrived. He was received by
Mrs. Melcombe almost, as it seemed, with the devotion of a daughter.

The room was strewed with account-books and cards. It had been intended
that he should make some remark about them, and then she was to say,
with careless ease, "Only the accounts of the parish charities." But he
courteously feigning to see none of the litter, she was put out.

He presently went to inspect the repairs and restorations, to look over
the garden and the stables; and it was not till the next morning that
she found occasion to ask some advice of him.

The cottages on the land were let with the farms, so that the farmers
put their labourers into them, charged, it is true, very little rent,
but allowed them to get very much out of repair. It was the farmers'
duty to keep them in repair; but there was no agent, no one to make them
do it. Moreover, they would have it that no repairs worth mentioning
were wanted. Did Mr. Mortimer think if sh