"Bide a while, Tom, till Jack hath been in the Court a year or twain; maybe then I shall hear thee to wish that all had been maids." Down to the parsonage trudged the puzzled and unhappy man, and found that Arthur was at home. He chatted for a short time with the family in general, and then told the ladies, as a piece of news which he expected to interest them, that his daughter Lucrece was about to be married. Had he not intentionally kept his eyes from Arthur while he spoke, he would have seen that the young man went white to the lips. "Eh, _ma foi_!" said Mrs Rose. "With whom shall she wed?" asked Mrs Tremayne. "Sir Thomas, is that true?" was the last remark--in hoarse accents, from Arthur. "It is true, my lad. Have I heard truly, that you would not have it so?" Mrs Tremayne looked at her son in a mixture of astonishment and dismay. It had never occurred to her guileless, unsuspicious mind that the object of his frequent visits to Enville Court could be any one but Clare. "Sir, I cry you mercy," said Arthur with some dignity. "I do readily acknowledge that I ought not to have left you in the dark. But to speak truth, it was she, not I, that would not you should be told." "That would not have me told what, Arthur?" "That I loved her," said Arthur, his voice slightly tremulous. "And-- she _said_ she loved me." "She told me that she had given thee no encouragement to speak to me." "To speak with you--truth. Whene'er I did approach that matter, she alway deterred me from the same. But if she hath told you, Sir, that she gave me no encouragement to love and serve her, nor no hope of wedding with her in due time,--why, then, she hath played you false as well as me." It was manifest that Arthur was not only much distressed, but also very angry. "And thou never spakest word to me, my son!" came in gentle tones of rebuke from his mother. "Ah, the young folks make not the confessor of the father nor the mother," said Mrs Rose smiling, and shaking her head. "It were the better that they did it, Arthur." "Mother, it was not my fault," pleaded Arthur earnestly. "I would have spoken both to you and to Sir Thomas here, if she had suffered me. Only the very last time I urged it on her--and that no further back than this last week--she threatened me to have no further dealing with me, an' I spake to either of you." "Often-times," observed Mrs Rose thoughtfully, "the maidens love not like the mothers, _mon cheri_." "God have mercy!" groaned poor Sir Thomas, who was not least to be pitied of the group. "I am afeared Rachel hath the right. Lucrece hath not been true in this matter." "There is no truth in her!" cried Arthur bitterly. "And for the matter of that, there is none in woman!" "_Le beau compliment_!" said his grandmother, laughing. His mother looked reproachfully at him, but did not speak. "And Rachel saith there is none in man," returned Sir Thomas with grim humour. "Well-a-day! what will the world come to?"