But Catherine was not merely languid in her felicitations, she stopped short in them, and substituted an uncalled-for piece of condolence: ‘How dull it will be for you with Mr. Stanhope and his brother at Copley Grange Farm, when you have been accustomed to solitude with your own brother!’ looking at amazed, indignant Fan, with great uncomprehending, commiserating eyes. ‘I hope you will not die of _ennui_ after the first week. No, I don’t forget that Mr. Stanhope is very fond of visiting, and you will have to visit a great deal with him, but won’t that also be dreadfully fatiguing?’ The Polleys and Dadds were not behind the others with their ovation; but, to Fan’s immense relief, she found she had established by this last step such a distance between herself and her early associates that they no longer even attempted to bridge it over. Fan Constable had succeeded in passing out of their sphere. They wished her joy as it were through Harry Stanhope, and they were as respectful in the expression of their good wishes, as if the rank which she was so soon to borrow from him already belonged to her. Old Dadd refrained from a single joke, and was almost solemn in alluding to the subject. Mrs. Polley only bristled up to Oliver, and represented to him that he would no longer be content to sit down in her back parlour, since he might be making the round of all the castles in the kingdom in company with his brother-in-law. Jack Dadd actually called Fan ‘Miss Constable,’ unless in the strictest privacy, among his most intimate cronies, or as a means of teasing the Polley girls. ’Mily Polley did not propose to call on Mrs. Stanhope. ‘She is a cut above us, now, and no mistake, when she’ll be going among his grand relations—generals and admirals, and Lady This and Lady That, every time he takes her up to town. I dare say the fine people will snub her, but Fan Constable won’t mind that, since they can’t close their doors against her, and she married to their nephew and first cousin; and she’ll give as good as she’ll take, I’ll say that for her. She’s never behind. But I tell you what, ’Liza, we’ll put our pride in our pockets—what’s the good of letting it stand in our way? and come round mother, and go to church instead of to chapel, the first Sunday after Mrs. Stanhope has returned from her wedding jaunt. We’ll try if we can’t get a wrinkle—as Jack Dadd says—out of her new bonnet. Only Fan Constable does not know how to dress herself. Yet she has caught a duck of a real gentleman, like Mr. Stanhope is, with her dowdy clothes, and her plain sewing, and her whity-brown face,’ cried ’Mily, in exasperation at the contradiction. ‘She had been his fate,’ said ’Liza, mysteriously.