The latter part of this amiable speech was muttered and scarcely heard or attended to by Alice in her struggle to conceal the grief she felt at the uncompromising opinion of her child. Nuttie might outgrow being raw, but there seemed less rather than more prospect of a better understanding with her father. About a week later Mark made his appearance, timing it happily when his uncle was making his toilette, so that his aunt was taking a turn on the sunny terrace with Nuttie when the young man came hurrying up the garden. 'Mark! What? Are you come home?' 'Not the others. They are at Mr. Condamine's, I came last night--by way of Lescombe. Edda, dear, it is all right! Oh, I forgot you did not know! There was no seeing you before we went away. Ah! by the by, how is my uncle?' 'Much better, except that using his eyes brings on the pain. 'What is it, Mark? Ah! I can guess,' she said, aided no doubt by that conjecture of her husband's. 'Yes, yes, yes!' he answered, with a rapidity quite unlike himself. 'Why, Nuttie, how mystified you look!' 'I'm sure I don't wonder at any one being glad to live at dear old Micklethwayte,' said Nuttie slowly. 'But, somehow, I didn't think it of you, Mark.' 'My dear, that's not all!' said her mother. 'Oh!' cried Nuttie, with a prolonged intonation. 'Is it?--Oh, Mark! did you _do it_ that night when you led the horse home?' 'Even so, Nuttie! And, Aunt Alice, Lady Ronnisglen is the best and bravest of old ladies, and the wisest. Nobody objects but Lady Delmar, and she declares she shall not consider it an engagement till Ronnisglen has been written to in Nepaul, as if he had anything to do with it; but that matters the less, since they all insist on our waiting till I've had a year's trial at the office! I suppose they could not be expected to do otherwise, but it is a pity, for I'm afraid Lady Delmar will lead Annaple and her mother a life of it.' 'Dear Mark, I am delighted that it is all going so well.' 'I knew you would be! I told them I must tell _you_, though it is not to go any farther.' So that hope of Mark's restoration to the inheritance faded from Alice, and yet she could not be concerned for him. She had never seen him in such good spirits, for the sense of failure and disappointment had always been upon him; and the definite prospect of occupation, gilded by his hopes of Annaple, seemed to make a new man of him. CHAPTER XVII. AN OLD FRIEND. 'My heart untravelled still returns to thee.'--GOLDSMITH. To go abroad! Such had been the fairy castle of Nuttie's life. She had dreamed of Swiss mountains, Italian pictures, Rheinland castles, a perpetual panorama of delight, and here she was in one of the great hotels of Paris, as little likely to see the lions of that city as she had been to see those of London.