In a moment all was bustle and excitement. Slight refreshment was quickly prepared for the travellers. But Mary had still her useful fairies at her elbow, and when her father summoned her from the dining-room at the time appointed, she only detained him one moment to cling to her mother's neck and kiss her fondly. Mrs. Armstrong stood at the door to see them off and wish them _bon voyage_. Then she returned to the library to rest after the hurried excitement, which fatigued her even more than a long walk. This hasty summons which her husband had received carried her memory back to those early days of her married life when with her husband and her little daughter Mary, she had visited Mr. Armstrong's paternal home. She recalled the sweet country landscape, the apple-orchards in full blossom, the fragrant hayfields, the leafy woods surrounding Meadow Farm, then redolent with the delights of early summer. She saw and heard again, in imagination, the crowing of cocks, the clucking of hens, the chirping chicks and lowing cattle, and the occasional "quack, quack" of ducks and geese, all of which sights and sounds greeted eye and ear from her bedroom window when she rose in the morning. Even the journey by the old-fashioned stage-coach was not without interest; and how well she remembered the pride of her mother's heart as her little Mary, then scarcely three years old, excited the astonishment of the passengers by spelling from the coach window the letters upside down, which formed the name of the coach proprietor! Again she recalled their amusement at one of Mary's childlike speeches, when they stopped to change horses on the road. Across the inn yard came a man with a wooden leg, carrying a pail of water. The child, who had never before seen this substitute for a human limb, almost screamed with excitement as she exclaimed-- "Oh, mamma, mamma, do look; there's a man with one leg, and a piece of stick for another!" Even now she could smile at the memory of the child's remark, but it was soon lost as her thoughts turned to the time when she stood in the old hall at Meadow Farm to receive the welcome of her husband's father, a tall, noble-looking man, one of the olden times, whose dark eyes at the age of sixty-seven had not lost their sparkling intelligence. These eyes, with eyelashes and brows equally dark, contrasted pleasantly with the silvery white hair; and the face with its winter-apple colour, though bronzed by constant exposure to the weather, wore a refined dignity of which his son Edward could scarcely boast. The welcome awarded by this fine old yeoman to his son's wife had a mixture of deference and affection which deeply gratified the well-born daughter of the St. Clairs, and her father-in-law's love for his little fairy grandchild completely won her heart.