So the ladies swept forth into the little garden, where they found a rustic chair under the shadow of a golden laburnham tree, and where the roses that Mary's hands had tended were now in all the beauty and luxuriance of midsummer; and ere long, Patty Fripp, who was not above eaves-dropping, while collecting fresh salad for supper, and unobserved was close by listening to all the two visitors said, obtained a clue to the whole matter. In fact, Greville Hampton, the widower, was engaged to Miss Anne Rookleigh! "Yes," said the latter, leisurely fanning herself, "that child of his will be a great bore!" "A greater bore if you have any little ones of your own," said the aunt, laughing; "but don't begin with this spirit in your breast, Anne--take care." "Take care of what?" asked the niece, haughtily. "I mean of abusing the great power you so evidently possess over your intended." "I little thought, aunt, when I was only amusing myself with him at Ilfracombe, rambling among the Tors, sketching the Lover's Leap, talking, playing chess with him, singing to him, accepting his flowers and all that, I would come to love him as I do, and end at last by finding this engagement ring on my finger!" ("So-so!" muttered Patty, under her breath, with a vicious sniff; "my old gossip was right--men don't break their hearts and die of love--for their wives at all events, look you!") "Yes, I love him for himself alone," resumed Miss Rookleigh, after a pause, "not his fortune certainly," she added with a mocking laugh; "he is so handsome and winning. But I know, aunt, that though you are a widow, you deem it impossible that there can be any romance in a second marriage; and yet in such, a man may learn that his first was a mistake, and that now he only loves for the first time," and with a dreamy smile in her bright hazel eyes she swayed her fan to and fro. "No one looks for romance in a second marriage--at least, I should not," replied her practical aunt; "I have always deemed them, like most first marriages, matters of convenience or of calculation, now-a-days. At all events you must admit, Anne, that all freshness of the heart must be gone?" "Aunt, you are very unpleasant! I believe a man is quite capable of loving twice, and the second time more than the first; because he must know his own mind better. If I thought that Greville had only the shadow of love to offer me--but I shall not canvas the idea! Greville's first marriage must seem like a dream to him now, and, if otherwise, it will go hard with me if I do not soon obliterate all memory of a former affection. He married his first wife for her beauty, I believe; but she was a poor namby-pamby little thing. He'll soon forget her, nay, he must have forgotten her now!" And a flash came into her eyes, of subtle colour, as she spoke. "Hush, Anne, how would you like to be spoken of thus? Besides, his child--_her_ child--will be a perpetual reminder."