'What I brought you here for,' said Louis, 'was to ask you to let me do what I have long wished--to let me put the letter M here?' 'I think you might have done it without leave,' said Mary. 'So I might at first, but by the time I came here again, Mary, you had become in my estimation 'a little more than kin,' and less than--no, I wont say that, but one could not treat you as comfortably as Clara. I lost a cousin one August day, and never found her again!' 'Never?' 'Never--but the odd thing is, that I cannot believe that what I did find has been away these seven years.' 'Yes, that is very strange,' said Mary; 'I have felt it so. Wo do seem to understand and guess each other's thoughts as if we had been going on together all this time. I believe it is because you gave me the first impulse to think, and taught me the way.' 'And I know who first taught me to think to any purpose,' said Louis, smiling. 'But who is this descending on us?' It was the Spanish gentleman, reddening all over at such an encounter, in mid-career towards her at the Terrace, and muttering something, breathless and almost surly, about begging pardon. 'Look here, Tom,' said Louis, lifting the leaves to show the letters. 'That is all I ever could feel on that matter, and so should you. There, no more about it,--you want to be on your way; and tell Mr. Frost that we shall be at Northwold in the afternoon.' About half an hour after, Clara was delicately blowing the dust out of the wreath of forget-me-nots on the porcelain shepherdess's hat, when a shriek resounded through the house, and, barely saving the Arcadian in her start, she rushed downstairs. James, in his shirt-sleeves, was already on his way to the kitchen. There Kitty was found, too much frightened, to run away, making lunges with the toasting-fork at a black-bearded figure, who held in his arms Charlotte Arnold, in a fit of the almost forgotten hysterics. The workhouse girl shrieked for the police; Jane was at Master Oliver's door, prepared for flight or defence; Isabel stood on the stairs, with her baby in her arms, and her little flock clinging to her skirts, when Clara darted back, laughing too much to speak distinctly, as she tried to explain who the ruffian really was. 'And Louis is coming, and Mary! Oh! Isabel, he has her at last! Oh! Jem! Jem! did we ever want dear granny so much! I always knew it would come right at last! Jane, Jane, do you hear, Lord Fitzjocelyn is married! Let me in; I must go and tell Uncle Oliver!' James looked at Isabel, and read in her smile Clara's final acquittal from all suspicions beneath the dignity of both. Uncle Oliver would have damped her joy, had it been in his power. He gave up his affairs as hopeless, as soon as he found that young Fitzjocelyn had only made them an excuse for getting married, and he was so excessively angry with her for being happy, that she found she must carry her joyous face out of his sight.