s, mamma."

"He had? What was it, my dear?"

"I was very much surprised, mamma, but I couldn't help it. He asked
me----"

"Asked you what, Mary?"

"Oh, mamma!" Here she knelt down and hid her face in her mother's lap.

"Oh, my dear, this is very bad;--very bad indeed."

"It needn't be bad for you, mamma; or for papa."

"Is it bad for you, my child?"

"No, mamma; except of course that I am sorry that it should be so."

"What did you say to him?"

"Of course I told him that it was impossible. He is only a boy, and I
told him so."

"You made him no promise."

"No, mamma; no! A promise! Oh dear no! Of course it is impossible. I
knew that. I never dreamed of anything of the kind; but he said it all
there out on the lawn."

"Had he come on purpose?"

"Yes;--so he said. I think he had. But he will go to Oxford, and will of
course forget it."

"He is such a nice boy," said Mrs. Wortle, who, in all her anxiety, could
not but like the lad the better for having fallen in love with her
daughter.

"Yes, mamma; he is. I always liked him. But this is quite out of the
question. What would his papa and mamma say?"

"It would be very dreadful to have a quarrel, wouldn't it,--and just at
present, when there are so many things to trouble your papa." Though Mrs.
Wortle was quite honest and true in the feeling she had expressed as to
the young lord's visit, yet she was alive to the glory of having a young
lord for her son-in-law.

"Of course it is out of the question, mamma. It has never occurred to me
for a moment as otherwise. He has got to go to Oxford and take his degree
before he thinks of such a thing. I shall be quite an old woman by that
time, and he will have forgotten me. You may be sure, mamma, that
whatever I did say to him was quite plain. I wish you could have been
here and heard it all, and seen it all."

"My darling," said the mother, embracing her, "I could not believe you
more thoroughly even though I saw it all, and heard it all."

That night Mrs. Wortle felt herself constrained to tell the whole story to
her husband. It was indeed impossible for her to keep any secret from her
husband. When Mary, in her younger years, had torn her frock or cut her
finger, that was always told to the Doctor. If a gardener was seen idling
his time, or a housemaid flirting with the groom, that certainly would be
told to the Doctor. What comfort does a woman get out of her husband
unless she