About this time, the idea that Miss Davoren was destined to make a splendid marriage became a fixed belief in the minds of the Rector’s family, from the head thereof to the very cook who cooked the dinner, always excepting the young lady herself, who seemed to take very little thought of anything but music; the organ which she played in the old church; the old-fashioned square piano in the rectory drawing-room. It did not seem possible to the simple mind of Mrs. Davoren that all this admiration could result in nothing; that her daughter could be the cynosure of every eye at Guildford Castle, the acknowledged belle at Lady Veering Baker’s musical evenings, and yet remain plain Janet Davoren, or be reduced to the necessity of marrying a curate or a struggling country surgeon. Something must come of all this patronage, which had kindled the fire of jealousy in many a Wykhamston breast. But when the fond mother ventured to suggest as much to the girl herself, she was put off with affectionate reproof. ‘Dearest mother, can you be so innocent as not to see that all this notice means nothing more than the gratification of the moment? The Marchioness and Lady Baker had happened to hear that I sing tolerably, and as the common run of amateur music is not worth much, thought they might as well have me. It only cost the trouble of calling upon you, and pretending to be interested in your poultry and papa’s garden. If this were London, and they could get professional singers, they would not have taken even so much trouble as that about me.’ ‘Never mind what the Marchioness and Lady Baker mean,’ said the mother; ‘I am not thinking of them, but of the people you meet there; the young men who pay you such compliments, and crowd round you after your songs.’ Janet laughed, almost bitterly, at this speech and at the mother’s eager look, full of anticipated triumph. ‘And who will go back to their own world and forget my existence, when they leave Hampshire,’ she said. ‘But there must be some whose attentions are more marked than others,’ urged Mrs. Davoren; ‘county people, perhaps. There is that Mr. Cumbermere, for instance, who has an immense estate on the borders of Berkshire. I’ve heard your papa talk of him; quite a young man, and unmarried. Come, Janet, be candid with your poor old mother. Isn’t there one among them all who seems a little in earnest?’ ‘Not one among them, mother,’ the girl answered, looking downward with a faint, faint sigh, so faint as to escape even the mother’s ear; ‘not one. They all say the same thing, or the same kind of thing, in just the same way. They think me rather good-looking, I believe, and they seem really to like my singing and playing. But they will go away and forget both, and my good looks as well. There is not one of them ever so little in love with me; and if I were in love with one of them I might almost as well be in love with all, for they are all alike.’