Beatrix mended slowly under Mr. Namby’s care, and with plenty of nursing from Mrs. Peters, Mary the housemaid, Bella, and Mrs. Dulcimer; the Vicar’s wife being incapable of remaining long in a state of even tacit opposition to her dear Clement. She was not quite comfortable in her own mind about Beatrix, but she tried to be convinced, and she told herself that such a clever man as Clement, whose opinions were supported by the finest library of reference that ever a country parson collected, must be wiser than Miss Coyle. So one afternoon in windy March, Beatrix was put into the old-fashioned carriage in which her mother had driven during her brief wedded life, and was conveyed to the Vicarage, there to remain till she should be strong enough to travel. She felt a sensation nearer akin to happiness than she had known for a long time when she found herself seated in the Vicar’s firelit library, with a little old-fashioned tea-table by her side, and Rebecca waiting upon her with a cup of strong tea. Rebecca had been talked to seriously by the Vicar, and had seceded in a scandalously abrupt manner from the Coyle faction. ‘Now, Beatrix, this is to be your home as long as you can make yourself happy in it,’ said the Vicar. ‘The Water House is a very fine old place, but it is damp and dismal, and I don’t at all wonder that it made you ill. You are to call this home, and you are to think of me as your father.’ ‘And you do not believe--’ faltered Beatrix, and then burst into tears. ‘I believe you are a good and noble girl,’ said the Vicar, cheerily, ‘and that a happy and honourable life lies before you.’ ‘And after all,’ he reflected, ‘though I detest match-making, it would be no bad thing for that dog Kenrick if he could win this splendid girl for his wife.’ That dog Kenrick was still staying, off and on, at the Vicarage. His leave did not expire till the end of April. He had about six weeks before him. He came in presently while Beatrix was sitting in the dimly lighted room sipping her tea. Mr. Dulcimer had been called out into the hall to see a parishioner. There was no one else in the room. ‘I am so glad to see you better,’ said Kenrick, heartily, planting himself in a chair near Miss Harefield. By that doubtful light he was wonderfully like Cyril. The shock of his entrance--something in the likeness, as he sat beside her with the fire-glow flickering upon his face, moved Beatrix painfully. She could hardly answer him. ‘Thank you. I am much better,’ she murmured, faintly. ‘But far from well, I am afraid,’ he said. ‘You seem very weak.’ In the next instant her head fell back upon the cushion of the easy chair. She had fainted. Kenrick rang the bell violently for Rebecca. He was not a coxcomb, but he had a very good opinion of himself, and this fainting fit of Beatrix’s affected himself curiously. He made up his mind that it was he whom she loved, and not Cyril; and he made up his mind that he would win her for his wife. CHAPTER XI.