Yet, throughout this time, Rhoda Lawford had always had it in her mind that if all other views failed, she could wind up fairly well by marrying the Rector. It was not at all the kind of fate she had imagined for herself years ago in the freshness of her charms; but it would be a respectable match. Nobody could presume to pity her, or say that she had done badly. The Rector was ten years her senior, so nobody could laugh at her for marrying a youth. Altogether there would be a fitness and a propriety about the alliance, which would be in perfect harmony with the elegance of her person and the spotlessness of her character. On her fortieth birthday, Miss Lawford told herself that the time had now come when the Rector must be taken seriously in hand, and taught to see what was good for himself. A friendship which had been meandering on for the last twelve years must be brought to a head; dangling attention and old-fashioned compliments must be reduced into something more tangible. In a word, the Rector must be converted from a friend into a suitor. It had taken Miss Lawford two years to open the Reverend Marmaduke’s eyes; but at the end of those two years the thing was done, and the Rector was sighing, somewhat apoplectically, for the approach of his wedding-day, and the privilege of claiming Rhoda for his own. The whole process had been carried out with such consummate tact that Marmaduke Ferrers had not the faintest suspicion that the matrimonial card which he had drawn had been forced upon him. He believed in his engagement as the spontaneous growth of his own mind. ‘Strange that I should have known you so long, my Rhoda, and only discovered lately that you were so dear to me,’ he murmured in his fat voice, as he dawdled with his betrothed in one of those shadowy Warwickshire lanes which seem made for the meandering of lovers. His Rhoda smiled tenderly; and then they began to talk about the new carpet for the Rectory drawing-room, the _Sèvres garniture de cheminée_ which Sir Vernon had given his sister for a wedding present, dwelling rather upon the objective than the subjective side of their position, as middle-aged lovers are apt to do. ‘I hope you will not mind my keeping Todd,’ said the Rector presently, pausing to recover his breath, and plucking a dog-rose in absence of mind. ‘Dearest, have I any wish in opposition to yours?’ murmured Rhoda, but not without a shadow of sourness in the droop of her lips, for she had a shrewd idea that so long as the Rector’s housekeeper, Mrs. Todd, remained at the Rectory, nobody else could be mistress there. CHAPTER VI. ‘LOVE MAKETH ALL TO GONE MISWAY.’