Kitabı oku: «Lettice», sayfa 8
“I wish I knew anything about farming,” he said to his old friend, when he was sitting quietly by him; “I’d have asked you to take me on your farm.”
“And I’d have been glad to do it, my lad,” said the old man, whose liking for the young stranger had steadily increased, and whose thoughts this Christmas evening were softened by the remembrance of the son whom he fancied he “favoured;” “but thou’rt not made for farming. It takes a tougher sort than thee. And, what’s more, as it’s making money thou’st got in thy head, don’t go for to fancy as people make fortunes nowadays by farming. Better stick to James. He’s a bit short-like at first; but if you get into one another’s ways, you’ll find him a good master.”
The next day the draper had a long talk with his guest. He explained to him some part of the work, and told him he would by degrees teach him the whole.
“But, first,” he said, “I must tell you that before I show you the whole of my business, or even as much of it as you should know, which would take some time, and give me a good deal of trouble, as, of course, it’s all perfectly new to you, I should like to have some sort of security.”
Here Arthur interrupted him. “I can get some money,” he said. “Did Mr Felshaw,” – Mr Felshaw was the old farmer – “did he not tell you? I have some money I can give you as surety for my honesty;” and his face got red as he said it.
“No, no,” James replied. “It’s not security of that kind I mean. I’m not afraid of your honesty, somehow. I’d rather risk it. I think I know an honest face when I see one. What I was going to say was that I’d like some security that you’d stay, not be throwing it up at the end of a three months or so, and saying as how you were tired of it, or maybe,” – and here the draper hesitated a little – “it’s not likely now, is it, that any of your fine friends might be coming after you, and saying as you weren’t to stay? You’re not of age yet by a long way, I should say.”
“No,” said Arthur; “I’m not quite eighteen.”
“That’s three years off still, then,” said James. “But,” continued Arthur, “my friends are not likely to interfere, as they don’t know where I am.”
James raised his eyebrows.
“Are they likely to try to find out?” he said. “It’s not difficult to track any one nowadays. But you’ve no father and mother living Mr Felshaw told me.”
“No,” said Arthur; and then he hesitated. “My friends have not tried to find me yet,” he said.
“But,” continued James, “before you engage yourself to me, for a year say, mightn’t it be best to have it all clear and straightforward, and see as no one who has any right to interfere is likely to do so? Couldn’t you write and ask?” Arthur shook his head.
“I don’t want to give them any trouble about me,” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong; but I’ve had a great deal of trouble and difficulty, and I want to show that I can manage for myself.”
“Well, well,” said James, “think it over, my lad. You can just go on for a while quietly, doing what you can. And then, when you have tried it a bit, and we see how we suit each other, if so be as you feel disposed to engage yourself for a year, I’ll put you in the way of things. You can employ yourself this morning in measuring off these bales of merino and alpaca, and marking the lengths of each. I’ll be in the front shop, and, if I want you, I’ll call you, just for you to begin to get used to it like.”
“Thank you very much indeed,” said Arthur. “I’ll think it over, and give you an answer as soon as I can.”
For even to his inexperience it was clear that he was being treated with unusual kindness and consideration. He did not overhear what James said to his wife that evening.
“You take my word for it, he’ll not be with us long,” he said. “He’s not in his place, and he’ll never take to it. He blushed up scarlet every time I called him, even though it was only old mother Green wanting grey flannel for a best jacket, or Miss Snippers’ apprentice for some hooks and needles. If it had been any of the quality, I believe he’d have turned tail altogether. You’ll see his friends’ll be fetching him away. But if he likes to stay for a bit, he’s welcome. I like a lad with a spirit of his own.”
“And there’s no doubt he has a very genteel appearance,” observed Eliza complacently.
Chapter Twelve.
Ending Well
“Wondrous it is to see in diverse mindes
How diversely Love doth his pageant play,
And shows his power in variable kindes.”
Spenser.
The days went on. It was nearly a fortnight past the New Year, and nothing of moment had happened. Arthur’s letter, written on Christmas Day, had been duly received, but it, any more than its predecessors, gave no clue to his present quarters. But to his sisters – to Nina especially – there was a softer tone in it; it was less bitter and yet less morbid. He wrote of his intense wish to see them, of his hope that he had acted rightly, of his earnest trust that some day they would, Lettice above all, learn to think of him as no longer one to be ashamed of, as a poor miserable failure. In all this there was comfort to Nina, but not to Lettice.
“I am sure, I can see he is getting into a healthier state of mind,” said the younger sister eagerly. “If we could but write to him and tell him all we feel, I am sure he would come back, and we should all be happy again.”
But Lettice shook her head.
“It is I,” she said. “It is always I. Don’t you see, Nina? It is I that he is afraid of. But for me I dare say he would come back; but for me he would never have gone away.”
Godfrey Auriol had not yet returned. All this time Mr Morison was looking forward to his coming back as to a sort of goal.
“He is so quick-witted and alert,” he said to Nina, for to Lettice he seldom spoke of his fellow-guardian – it was easy to see that the mention of his name always was met by her with shrinking and reluctance. “He is so energetic and clever, and he knows Arthur personally. I cannot help thinking that when he returns he will suggest something. Hitherto certainly everything has lamentably failed!”
For Mr Winthrop and Philip had been to Liverpool, had seen Mr Simcox, who could only assure them that no one in the least answering to the description of Arthur, or “the gentleman tramp,” had applied to him, and that he had never received the letter of introduction; they had inquired, so far as they dared without transgressing Mr Morison’s injunctions of privacy, in every part of the town, but without any result. There was even, after all, some amount of uncertainty as to whether the young man who had been so kindly received at the rectory had been Arthur Morison; though whether he were, or were not, Mr Winthrop was equally at a loss to explain his never having made use of the introduction he had so thankfully received.
“I wonder Philip has not come back to town, when he knows we are all here together,” said Mrs Morison one evening. “I never knew him stay so long at the Winthrops’ before.”
“There may be some attraction,” said Mr Morison. “You forget, my dear Gertrude, that your niece Daisy is seventeen now, and she bade fair to be a very pretty girl.”
Nina was sitting at the piano. She had been playing, and had turned half carelessly on the stool, to join in the conversation going on. Suddenly she wheeled round and began playing again, more loudly and energetically than was her wont. Lettice, on her side, who was helping her aunt to pour out the tea, grew so pale that Mrs Morison was on the point of asking her what was the matter, when a slight warning touch of the girl’s hand on her arm restrained her.
“I must warn Ingram,” thought Mrs Morison, some vague remembrance returning to her of having heard or been told by some one of her nephew Philip’s having greatly admired one of her husband’s nieces. Lettice or Nina, which was it? Oh, Nina it must have been, that time she was staying with the Curries near Philip’s home. And she stole a glance of sympathy at the girl at the piano, who continued to play, more softly now and with an undertone of sadness in her touch which seemed to appeal to her aunt’s kind heart.
“Poor little thing,” she thought. “But if there is anything in it, it will not be difficult to put it right.”
She turned to look for Lettice, with some vague idea of seeking her confidence on the subject. Lettice was sitting quietly at a little distance, with a book open before her. Mrs Morison was crossing the room to sit down beside her, when a ring at the bell made them all start. Not that rings at the bell are so uncommon an occurrence in a London house, but it was getting late, no visitor was expected, and the ring had a decided and slightly authoritative sound.
“It is like Auriol’s ring,” said Mr Morison; and the words were scarcely out of his mouth when the door was thrown open, and Mr Auriol was announced.
Every one jumped up. For a few minutes there was a bustle of surprise and welcome, questions asked and answered, so that Lettice’s quiet greeting passed among the rest, without any one specially remarking it. She was inexpressibly thankful when it was over, and in her heart grateful to Godfrey for making this first meeting under the so strangely altered circumstances pass so easily.
“I have only just got back,” he said when the hubbub had subsided, and Mrs Morrison had rung for fresh tea. “I came on here as soon as I had changed my clothes. I have been travelling all day. That last place where I was at is so frightfully out of the way, but I stayed a night at the Winthrops’.”
He spoke faster than usual, and it was not difficult for any one used to him to detect some underlying excitement Lettice, at least, did so, and sympathised in it, as for the first time it struck her that this meeting was for him, too, difficult and trying. She said nothing, but when her aunt exclaimed, “Travelling all to-day? Dear me! You must be tired,” she murmured gently, “Yes, indeed;” and Godfrey caught her words, faint as they were, and looked pleased.
“I was so anxious to hear if – if you had heard anything more,” he said; and though he did not name Arthur, every one knew that was what he meant.
“Nothing more,” said Mr Morison, for the last letter, bearing date now nearly a fortnight ago, had been communicated to Mr Auriol. “I must have a long talk with you about it all, Auriol. I think it is about time to be doing something more energetic, and yet we have all agreed in feeling very reluctant to making any ‘to-do’ that could possibly be avoided.”
“Oh yes,” said Nina fervently, clasping her hands.
Mr Auriol sat silent for a moment or two. Then he looked up and said —
“You have no idea, I suppose, who it is that posts his letters for him?”
Mr Morison looked a little bewildered.
“They are all posted in London, I think you told me?” added Mr Auriol.
“To be sure,” said Mr Morison. “Yes. I have once or twice wondered who does it, unless it is himself? No, by-the-by, he has distinctly said he is not in London. I have thought of it, but not very much. I fancied it so hopeless to get any clue in that way.”
“But it must be some one in his confidence, some one, I should almost say, whom he had a claim on,” said Godfrey. “For there is a certain amount of risk in doing it; the person might be blamed for having taken any part in it. Is there no one any of you have ever heard of who would be likely to agree to do Arthur a service of the kind?” He looked round, but his glance seemed to rest on Lettice. No one spoke.
“You must all think it over,” he said. “It’s only a suggestion, but something may come of it.” And soon after, allowing that he was very tired, he said “Good night,” and went away.
Lettice, in the quiet of her own room, realised how kindly and considerately he had behaved. His matter-of-fact manner had been the greatest relief, and nothing that he could have said could have been so full of tact and delicacy as his saying nothing.
“I do believe,” thought the girl, her impulsive nature aglow again, “I do believe he hurried out here to-night as much for my sake as on account of his anxiety. He knew his coming in that sudden unlooked-for way would carry off the awkwardness. It is very generous of him.” Then her thoughts reverted to what he had suggested. Did she know any one standing in such a position to Arthur? She sat long thinking, asking herself the question, when suddenly, by that curious process by which it sometimes seems as if the machinery of our brain obeyed our orders unconsciously to ourselves – there dashed into her memory a name, a sentence she had heard Arthur utter. The name was “Dawson,” and as she repeated it to herself, she seemed to hear her brother’s voice saying thoughtfully —
“Yes, I do believe there’s one person in the world who’d do anything for me. It’s that fellow Dawson. I’ve told you about him, Lettice?” Yes, he had told her about him, though he probably had forgotten doing so, just as she, till this moment, had forgotten having heard it. Now, by slow degrees, it came back to her. Dawson had been a young servant in Mr Downe’s service, and by a fall from a ladder had broken his leg. Being naturally delicate, this accident had altogether ruined his health; he was pronounced incurably lame, and Arthur had done his utmost to help and comfort the poor boy. I do not know that Lettice remembered all these details so clearly, but they were the facts, and she recalled enough to make her sure that Dawson was worth looking up. She knew he had been living at the little town near to which was Mr Downe’s “cramming” establishment; she felt almost sure his home was there. In any case, it was more than probable he would there be heard of; and surely, surely it was worth trying!
Whatever were Lettice Morison’s faults and failings, want of courage and determination were not among them. Her plans were soon made.
It was but little sleep that fell to her share that night.
“I must go alone,” she said to herself. “If I have discovered Arthur’s secret I have no right to share it with any other till I know what he himself wishes. Besides, it is I who am to blame for his having been driven away; it is I who should bring him back.”
She quickly made her arrangements. For the second time in the course of but a few weeks, she wrote a note for Nina to find after she should have left – a note to some extent explaining what she was about.
“I think I have got a clue, dearest Nina,” she said. “But I must follow it up alone. Do not be the least uneasy about me. I shall probably be back in a few hours; if not, I will telegraph in the course of the day.”
This was about all that Nina had to show to her uncle, when at breakfast-time that morning she rushed downstairs with the tidings of Lettice’s disappearance. Mr Morison looked, and was, terribly put out. For the first time, his patience seemed about to desert him.
“It is really too bad,” he said. “What have I done or left undone that Lettice should meet me with so little confidence? It is all nonsense about her being the only person who could act, if indeed there is anything to act about. It is too bad!” And then, catching sight of the excessive distress in Nina’s gentle face, his kind heart smote him for adding to it.
“After all,” he said, more cheerfully than he felt, “I do not know that there is anything to be really uneasy about I quite expect her back by luncheon. We let her off too easily the last time, eh, Nina? Poor child! What a child she is, to do things in this silly, ill-considered way!”
They went in to breakfast, and Nina tried to follow her uncle’s example, and to believe that there was nothing to be seriously alarmed about. But neither Mr nor Mrs Morison eat anything, and seemed eager to leave the table, in order, no doubt, to discuss what steps to take.
“Dear me,” thought poor Nina, her eyes filling with tears, “what trouble, from first to last, we have caused them!”
Just as the mockery of a breakfast was over – Miss Branksome and the younger children had had theirs earlier – and the three were rising from the table, there came, as the evening before, a short, sharp, authoritative ring at the door-bell.
“That sounds like Auriol again,” said Mr Morison, smiling at his own fancifulness, “though of course it can’t be at this time of the morning.” But he was mistaken. It was Mr Auriol. In he hurried, not waiting for the footman to announce him, a bright, eager expression on his face, an opened envelope in his hand.
“Good news!” he cried. “I have a letter from Arthur, giving an address to which I may write, if I have good news for him. I could not rest till I told you of it, so I rushed up here at once. Will you give me a cup of tea, Mrs Morison? The letter was to be private unless I could guarantee all of you feeling – as I know you do about it, Lettice especially. It all hangs on her, but I know she will be only too ready. Where is she – not down yet?”
The three others looked at each other – for a moment forgetting their own trouble in honest reluctance to chill poor Godfrey’s evident delight. Nina was the first to speak.
“Oh!” she said, and the exclamation came from the very bottom of her heart, “if Lettice had but waited till breakfast-time!”
He looked up in bewildered amazement. Then all had to be told, and Lettice’s letter shown. Godfrey bit his lips till it made Nina nervous to watch him, as he read it.
“What is the meaning of it? Is it my fault again? Have I frightened her away?” he said almost piteously.
At which, of course, they all exclaimed, though he seemed hardly convinced by what they said. Then he told them about Arthur’s letter. It had been drawn forth by the terrible home-sickness which had began to prey upon him, and by the necessity of his coming to a decision about binding himself to his present employer for a considerable time. He gave no particulars as to where he was, or how employed, but spoke of his misery at being without any tidings of all at home, and how at last the idea had come to him of confiding in Godfrey. “I trust you implicitly, even though you are my guardian,” he said naïvely, “not to speak of this letter, not to endeavour to find me, unless you are assured that they all want me to come back; that they will not be, Lettice especially, ashamed of me; that Lettice will not insist on my trying again when I know I should again fail. All depends on Lettice.”
Then he gave the address to which Mr Auriol was to write, but entreated him not to let the person living at that address be blamed, or fall into any trouble on his account. “He has been a faithful friend,” Arthur wrote; “but for him I could not have written home at all.”
“Who is it?” asked Mr Morison.
“I have no idea,” said Godfrey. “I saw no necessity for inquiring. I meant just to write, and to ask his sisters to do so,” he went on. “I felt sure they, Miss Morison especially, would know how to write so as to bring him back at once. But now – there is no use writing till we know where she is, and what she is doing; and yet,” he glanced at the envelope, “he will be already wondering at my silence. This letter has been following me about for more than a week.”
“Mr Auriol,” said Nina suddenly, “do you remember what you asked us last night? To try to think of any one whom Arthur may have employed to post his letters. That may have put something in Lettice’s head; she may have thought of some one. I have a vague idea of some young man, some boy, living near Mr Downe’s, whom Arthur was kind to.”
“This may be he,” said Mr Auriol. “The letter is to be sent under cover to ‘T. Dawson,’ in a village near Fretcham, where Mr Downe’s is.”
“I believe that is where she has gone. She must have remembered it,” said Mr Morison. “What shall we do?”
“I shall start at once,” said Godfrey. ”‘T. Dawson,’ whoever he is, will not be so startled by me as by any one else, as he has sent on this letter to me. And of course there will be no treachery to Arthur in his telling me if Miss Morison has been there.”
“Perhaps it is the best thing to do,” said Mr Morison, “though I would gladly have gone myself.”
“And I do so hope you will bring Lettice back with you,” said Nina.
And almost before they had realised his apparition among them, he was gone.
“Another long miserable day of waiting for telegrams,” said poor Nina piteously. And then determining to follow sensible Miss Branksome’s advice, she went in search of her, to beg her to suggest some employment to make the time of suspense pass more quickly.
“Give me some piece of hard work, please. A very difficult German translation might do, or a piece of very fine old lace to mend.” And poor Miss Branksome was cudgelling her brains as to what to propose, when Mrs Morison’s voice, calling Nina, interrupted them.
“Nina, I want you,” said her aunt. “Will you help me to write some notes and to attend to several little things I want done quickly? For I have just had a word from Philip Dexter. He has come back, and is to be here at luncheon, and I should not like to be busy the first time he comes after so long.”
Thus occupation was found both for Nina’s fingers and thoughts.
Late, very late that evening, a lady in mourning got out of the train at a junction far away in the north.
“This is Merton Junction, is it not?” she said timidly. “It is here that one changes for Greenwell, is it not?”
“Greenwell,” said the porter questioningly; “that is on the other side of Middleham, is it not?” For Greenwell was a very little town.
“I don’t know,” said Lettice – for Lettice of course it was – “I thought everybody would know it here. They told me in London to take my ticket to Merton, and then get another.”
The porter looked confused and rather bothered. He was on the point of leaving the station for the night. There were no more trains for an hour or two. He did not know what to do with this unfortunate traveller, and yet, not being of a surly nature, did not like to throw her off.
It ended in the poor man’s giving himself a good deal of trouble to find out that there was no train for Greenwell till four o’clock in the morning. There was nothing for it but for Lettice to spend the night in the desolate waiting-room of the station, for the junction was some distance from the small town of the name. Even had she felt able to walk there, Lettice could hardly have had a couple of hours’ sleep before she would have had to come back again.
It was not a cheerful prospect – four or five hours at a railway station in the middle of the night in January. The porter poked up the fire, and told her she’d no need to be “afeard;” he would speak to the night-porters, there’d be a couple of them there, and at four o’clock there’d be some one to give her her ticket. And with a friendly “good night,” none the less so for the fee which Lettice gave him, he went off.
She was a little frightened. In vain she told herself she had no need to be so. All the horrible stories she had ever heard of in such circumstances returned to her mind. She tried to sleep on the hard horsehair sofa, and succeeded in dozing uncomfortably, to be startled awake by one of the night-porters coming in to stir up the fire. Then she dozed again, to wake shivering with cold, the fire out, the faint gaslight sufficing but to make darkness visible. She started up; there was light enough to see the time by her watch. With the greatest relief, she saw that it was half-past three!
Half an hour later, she had got her ticket, and was stepping into a first-class carriage of the train, which had come in from the south, and was going on to Middleham.
“Now at last,” thought Lettice, “my troubles are over. In a few hours more I shall be with Arthur.”
As she settled herself in her place, she saw by the feeble lamp-light that there were two other persons in the carriage – two gentlemen. She glanced at them, but with no interest curiosity, and she distinguished neither of their faces. One, an elderly man, got out at the first station they stopped at. The little bustle of handing him some of his belongings brought Lettice face to face with the remaining passenger. Both started, both gave vent to an exclamation; but Lettice’s was of dismay, her companion’s of relief.
“Mr Auriol!”
“Lettice – Miss Morison, how thankful I am to have found you!”
Lettice’s face, cold as it was, burned.
“Found me!” she repeated. “Have you been sent after me to look for me? There was no need for anything of the kind. I telegraphed yesterday to say I was coming on to – ” She hesitated, not sure if she would, to him, say whither she was bound. But her tone was full of resentment.
Godfrey gave a sigh that was half a groan, of something very like despair.
“Will you always misunderstand me?” he said.
“What can I say? What can I do? You seem to think I have a mission in life of annoying and insulting you. What can a man do to prove that he does not deserve to be so thought of?”
Lettice looked at him in amazement, not unmixed with compunction. Was this the calm, stately Mr Auriol? Did he so care for her opinion? She could hardly take it in; and then, by a quick revulsion, she remembered how only the night before she had called him, and felt that he deserved to be called, generous.
“I am sorry for being so hasty,” she said. “But I don’t see why you or any one need have followed me. I wanted,” she went on, and her eyes filled with tears – “I wanted to have done it all myself. It – it was my fault Arthur went away; I wanted to be the one to bring him back.”
Godfrey moved away. He could hardly help smiling, and yet he was so sorry for her. What a child she was! What a mixture of gentleness and obstinacy, of generosity and devotion and self-will!
“Lettice,” he said very, very gently, but very seriously nevertheless, “there are some things in which you must yield to those older and more experienced than you. It is not right for a young creature like you – so – now, you must not be angry – so lovely, and so sure to be remarked, to go running about the country, however good your motive may be. You don’t know, you can hardly imagine, the anxiety they – we have all been in!” – and he hesitated – “I, I do believe, the most of all.”
“You,” said Lettice, and the tears in her eyes began slowly to trickle down her face. “You hate me, I know. Why should you mind what I do? It is I that have caused you all the trouble.”
“I hate you?” he repeated. “Lettice, are you saying that on purpose? Yes, you have caused me more trouble than any one else has ever done, because, from the first moment I ever saw you, from that first evening at Esparto, I have loved you, Lettice. And everything has been against me. I am mad to tell you this; I meant never to have let it pass my lips.”
Lettice’s face was burning, but not with anger. She herself could not have defined her own feelings. She tried to speak, but the words were all but inaudible.
“You make me ashamed,” she said. “I can’t understand it.”
But at that moment the train slackened. The faint morning light was struggling in the cold wintry sky. Mr Auriol sprang from his seat.
“We get out here,” he said. “This is Middleham;” and, submissive at last, Lettice allowed him to help her out of the carriage. He took her at once to the best hotel of the place, and then, having ordered some breakfast, of which she was sorely in need, for she had eaten almost nothing the day before, he gave her Arthur’s letter to read, and explained to her what he intended to do. Her plans had been of the simplest.
“I meant just to go to the address at Greenwell and ask for him,” she said; and she quickly saw that Mr Auriol’s intention of telegraphing to Arthur at once to come over to see him at Middleham was much better.
“It will involve him in no awkwardness,” he said, “nor will it lead to his blaming Dawson, poor fellow. For I,” he added, with a smile, “am armed with his own credentials;” and he touched the letter as he spoke.
“You don’t think Arthur will be angry with Dawson,” said Lettice, “or,” she went on, and the idea struck Mr Auriol as very comical, “with me? I made Dawson tell me.”
An hour later Mr Auriol returned to the sitting-room, where he had left Lettice, with an open telegram in his hand.
“This is from Arthur,” he said, “or rather from ‘John Morris,’” he added, with a slight smile, as he handed it to Lettice.
“Thousand thanks. Will be with you by twelve,” was the telegram.
“I don’t think there is much fear of his being angry with anybody,” observed Mr Auriol.
“Thanks to you. It was so much better to send for him than to go there,” said Lettice impulsively.
Godfrey’s face flushed. He half turned away; then, taking courage, he came nearer again.
“Lettice,” he said, “are you not angry with me? I forgot myself. It is very good of you not to resent it.”
“Resent it!” said Lettice simply. “How could I do so? I can’t quite believe that you knew what you were saying. I think you must be so sorry for me, for all the trouble I have brought on myself and on other people, that – that – just that you are very sorry for me. For one thing,” and her voice grew very low and her face very red, “I thought you cared for Nina.”
“You, too!” he exclaimed. “How extraordinary! It is a good thing I do not, not in that way, for I should have had no chance of success. I met Philip Dexter at the Winthrops’, where I stayed a night; and – I think he would not mind my telling you – in talking together rather confidentially, I found out that he, too, has had that idea, and has been very unhappy. But I put it all right, and he’s back in London by this time. We may hear some news on our return.”
“Did he tell you what gave him the idea?” asked Lettice, almost in a whisper.
“Some chance words of mine at Esparto,” said Godfrey.
“It is very generous of him to have said so. But it was not only that,” said Lettice, her eyes filling with tears.
But, somehow or other, the confession she made of this new offence did not lower her in Mr Auriol’s eyes as hopelessly as she had expected.
A few days later a happily reunited family were assembled in Mr Morison’s house. How easy it was for Lettice to convince Arthur of the complete change in her feelings, when she told him of the little-hoped-for reconciliation with their uncle, may be imagined! How more than ready to forgive her unfortunate influence in their affairs she found Philip and Nina! How her uncle and aunt promised to forget the anxiety she had caused them, on condition of her never again thus setting aside the judgment and experience of her natural protectors! How more than amazed was everybody when, a few weeks later, by which time Lettice had learnt to believe that Godfrey Auriol did mean what he said, her engagement to him was announced! All these “hows” I must also leave to my reader’s imagination.
