So Harry returned to Tottenham’s with his aunt, hurriedly proffering a visit a few days after. Nobody perceived the suppressed excitement with which he made this offer, for the house was too full of the stir of one storm, scarcely blown over, to think of another. He went back, accordingly, into the country stillness, and spent another lingering twilight hour with Margaret. How different the atmosphere seemed to be in which she was! It was another world to Harry; he seemed to himself a better man. How kind he felt towards the little girl!--he who would have liked to kick Phil, and thought the Tottenham children so ridiculously out of place, brought to the front, as they always were. When little Sibby was “brought to the front,” her mother seemed but to gain a grace the more, and in the cottage Harry was a better man. He took down with him the loveliest bouquet of flowers that could be got in Covent Garden, and a few plants in pots, the choicest of their kind, and quite unlikely, had he known it, to suit the atmosphere of the poky little cottage parlour. Mr. Franks had begun to move out of the doctor’s house, and very soon the new family would be able to make their entrance. Margaret and her brother were going to town to get some furniture, and Harry volunteered to give them the benefit of his experience, and join their party. “But we want cheap things,” Margaret said, true to her principle of making no false pretences that could be dispensed with. This did not in the least affect Harry; he would have stood by and listened to her cheapening a pot or kettle with a conviction that it was the very best thing to do. There are other kinds of love, and some which do not so heartily accept as perfect all that is done by their object; and there are different stages of love, in not all of which, perhaps, is this beautiful satisfaction apparent; but at present Harry could see nothing wrong in the object of his adoration. Whatever she did was right, graceful, beautiful--the wisest and the best. I do not suppose it is in the nature of things that this lovely and delightful state of sentiment could last--but for the moment so it was. And thus, while poor Lady Augusta passed her days peacefully enough--half happy, half wretched, now allowing herself to listen to Gussy’s anticipations, now asking bitterly how on earth they expected to exist--_this_ was preparing for her which was to turn even the glory of Mary’s approaching wedding into misery, and overwhelm the whole house of Thornleigh with dismay. So blind is human nature, that Lady Augusta had not the slightest apprehension about Harry. He, at least, was out of harm’s way--so long as the poor boy could find anything to amuse him in the country--she said to herself, with a sigh of satisfaction and relief.