“It may be,” thought Veronica, “that this is to be one of those unequal marriages, that after all turn out quite as happily, or more so, than those where the balance is more even. Marion, as yet, is hardly conscious of her own powers. Should she marry Geoffrey the probability is she will never become so. Never, at least, in the present state of things. And after all, much power is doomed for ever in this world to remain latent! But, on the other hand—I wish it could be! I do, indeed wish it so much, that I doubt my own clear-sightedness. She will, assuredly, be well able to decide for herself when the question comes before her, as I suppose in time it must. It is Geoffrey I am so troubled about. Should I do better to crush his hopes altogether? I could do so. But then, again, if it should turn out unnecessary! Ah, no! All I can do is to watch and wait. If only he does not ruin his own cause by anything premature.” “If only!” But, alas, there came a day on which, riding back to Mallingford, Geoffrey seeing Marion home after parting with the Misses Copley at the gate a their father’s park, the following conversation took place. It was late in February, a rank, dank, chilly afternoon, such as there had been plenty of this winter. Foggy, too; daylight already growing dim, an hour or more before it had any right to do so. Marion shivered, though not altogether from the cold. “Isn’t it a horrible day, Mr. Baldwin?” she asked; “a perfectly wretched day. Enough to make one wonder that people can be found willing to stay in such an ugly, disagreeable world. And yet there’s something fascinating about it too. I wonder how that is! Let me see; what is it it reminds me of? Oh, I know. It’s that song of Tennyson’s. ‘A spirit haunts the year’s last hours,’ it begins. ‘My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves. And the breath Of the fading edges of box beneath.’ That’s the sort of smell there is to-day, though it’s so chilly. Though that song is for the autumn. But it’s more like autumn than spring just now, isn’t it, Mr. Baldwin? There isn’t the slightest feeling of spring anywhere. No freshness, no life. Everything seems to be decaying.” “I don’t know,” said Geoffrey doubtfully, sniffing the air as he spoke. “Things ain’t looking bad on the whole. You’ll see it will all take a start soon, once the sprouts get their heads above ground. And then just think what a hunting season we’ve had! I declare my horses haven’t had so much taken out of them for I don’t know the time.”