"Now do be quiet, Sir Marmaduke, with your horrid sarcasm, and let us hear what the lady is like. Do tell us, Mr. Beresford," said Miss Townshend. "Oh, I have no idea of her personal appearance," replied Beresford. "Every body says she's very nice, and that the marriage is coming off at once--that's all I know." "Your curiosity will soon be gratified, with a very little trouble," interrupted Lyster. "You can ask Mr. Churchill himself--he's coming back to-morrow." "Coming back!" exclaimed Beresford. "Yes, to-morrow," replied Lyster, and added, between his teeth, "your little plot will soon be spoilt, my boy." Shortly afterwards, when the ladies left the table, Barbara did not accompany the rest, but went straight to her own room. There she seated herself at the open window, which looked out upon the lawn and upon the high downs beyond, over which the yellow-faced moon was rising in solemn beauty. And Barbara nestled into the great easy-chair, which she had pulled forward, and rested her chin on her hand, and looked upon the grand picture of varied light and shade with eyes that saw nothing of the beauty, and with a heart that comprehended it not. Down in the hollow lay a little farm, gray and cold and stony, as are such buildings in Sussex, and containing at that time a sleeping, snoring family; for the farmer, a thrifty man, had to be up betimes, and candlelight might as well be spared, and hard-working folk must rest. He did not think much about the moon, this Sussex farmer, nor did his hinds, two of whom were then snoring in the red-tiled barn just on the shoulder of you hill; but the glorious lamp of night was as much in their thoughts as she was in those of Barbara Lexden, who had copied out "The moon is up, by Heaven! a lovely eve," from _Childe Harold_, and knew Alfred de Musset's wild lines on the same subject by heart, and had gone in for the romantic business about it, and done some very effective bits of flirtation, in which the goddess Luna was made good use of. But the moon was nothing now to Barbara, whose mind was full of a far more worldly object, and whose foot was tapping impatiently on the floor. Going to be married? Then it was all accounted for--that letter with the feminine _griffe_, which he had pocketed immediately and read apart, and his hurried departure for town. Going to be married! What business had he, then, to come down there, and talk and act as though no engagement fettered him--to talk, indeed, as though no notion of matrimony had ever crossed his mind? Could he--? No; that was impossible. He could not have been playing with her--making a fool of her? What was that he had said about difference of class in marriage? Ay, that settled the question; the _fiancée_ was probably some dowdy woman, who could make a pie, and mend his clothes, and keep their maid-of-all-work in order. Well, the man was nothing to her--but she hoped he might be happy. It was getting very dull at Bissett, and she