All this time Heathcote stayed on. It was very bad taste, some people thought; and very silly, said other some. Yet still he remained. Of course it must be Rose that was the inducement, Anne being known to be engaged; and Fanny Woodhead did not hesitate to say that she really thought the man had no sense whatever of what was fitting, to stay on, and stay on, until the very last moment. But the household themselves did not object. They had got used to Heathcote. Even Anne liked him at those times when he did not look as if he were sitting in judgment upon Cosmo. Sometimes this was his aspect, and then she could not bear him. But generally he was very supportable. ‘You forget I live in London, too,’ he said. ‘I mean to see a great deal of you there. You may as well let me stay and take care of you on the journey.’ And Mrs. Mountford liked the proposal. For purposes of travelling and general caretaking she believed in men, and thought these among their principal uses. She even went so far as to say, ‘We shall be very well off in London with Mr. Douglas and your cousin Heathcote:’ so strangely had everything changed from the time when St. John Mountford disinherited his daughter because Cosmo was a nobody. Anne did not know what to think of this change of sentiment. Sometimes it seemed to make everything easier, sometimes to make all further changes impossible. Her heart beat with the idea of seeing him almost daily, looking for his constant visits, feeling the charm of his companionship round her: and then a mist would seem to gather between them, and she would foresee by instinct how Cosmo might, though very near, become very far. After this she would stop short and upbraid herself with folly. How could constant meeting and family companionship make them less near to each other? nothing could be more absurd: and yet the thought--but it was not a thought, scarcely a feeling, only an instinct--would come over her and give her a spiritual chill, a check in all her plans. ‘Mamma says she thinks we will be very well off in London,’ said Rose, ‘and we can go to concerts, and all those sorts of things. There is nothing in a concert contrary to mourning. Dances, of course, and _gay_ parties are out of the question,’ she added, with a slight sigh of regret; ‘but it is just when we are going to public places that gentlemen are so useful. You will have your Douglas and I shall have Cousin Heathcote. We shall be very well off----’ To this Anne made no reply. She was taking her papers out of the drawers of her writing-table, arranging them in a large old despatch-box, in which they were henceforth to be carried about the world. Rose came and stood over her curiously, looking at every little bundle as it was taken out.