"Not since your brother came to it. He has not been here long, you know. I called one day, but they said Mr. Dallory was out." "The place is very nice now. He has made alterations, and done it up beautifully. You must come again." "With pleasure," answered Richard. "How long shall you remain with him?" "As long as he will have me. I am not going away yet. I shall make it my home. Frank has quiet tastes, and so have I: and we intend to live a Darby and Joan life together, and grow into an old maid and an old bachelor." Richard smiled. "How is it Francis did not come with you this evening?" "May I dare to tell you why?" she whispered. "When we saw madam's carriage driving up, Frank disappeared. 'Say I am out,' was his order to me. He and madam never got on well: as a little boy he was terribly afraid of her, and I think the feeling has lasted. When I went to put my bonnet on, I found him shut up in his room. He wished me joy of my visit, and promised to come and walk home with me in the evening." Madam rose from table early. Something in the arrangements did not seem to suit her. It was a warm and lovely evening, and they went out on the lawn. Miss Dallory slipped round the corner of the house to the window of Mr. North's parlour. It stood open and he sat just within it. Sat with his hands on his knees, and his head drooping. Miss Dallory started: not so much because his face was thin and worn, but at its hopeless expression. In her two years' absence, he seemed to have aged ten. She stepped over the threshold, and gently laid her hands on his. He looked up as a man bewildered. "Why--it--it cannot be Mary Dallory." "It is Mary Dallory; come home at last. Won't you kiss me, dear Mr. North?" He kissed her fondly. In the old days, when John North was supposed to be the most rising man, in a commercial point of view, in the county, Mr. Dallory had thought it worth while to court his friendship, and Mr. North had been asked to stand godfather to his little girl. Mary--after she lost her own parents--was wont to say she belonged to the Hall, and often would be there. Her aunt, Mrs. Leasom, who had been a Miss Dallory once, was left guardian to the children, with Ham Court as her residence until the younger son should be of age, to whom it would then lapse. But Mrs. Leasom spent a large portion of her time in London, and sometimes the children had not seen their native place, Dallory, for years together. "When did you come home, my dear?" "To England a week ago. To Ham Court only yesterday. Do you know that you are much changed?" "Ay. There's nothing but change in this life, my dear. The nearer we approach the end of our days, the faster our sorrows seem to come upon us. I have had more than my share of them, and they have changed me. I see only one source of comfort left to me in the wide world." "And that?" she asked, half kneeling at his feet.