A hand turned the drawing-room door, and in the door-way stood Elsmere. Rose caught a gray dress disappearing up the little stairs behind him. Elsmere’s look was enough for the two girls. They understood in an instant. Rose flushed all over. The first contact with love is intoxicating to any girl of eighteen, even though the romance be not hers. But Mrs. Leyburn sat bewildered. Elsmere went up to her, stooped and took her hand. ‘Will you give her to me, Mrs. Leyburn?’ he said, his boyish looks aglow, his voice unsteady. ‘Will you let me be a son to you?’ Mrs. Leyburn rose. He still held her hand. She looked up at him helplessly. ‘Oh, Mr. Elsmere, where is Catherine?’ ‘I brought her home,’ he said gently, ‘She is mine, if you will it. Give her to me again!’ Mrs. Leyburn’s face worked pitifully. The rectory and the wedding dress, which had lingered so regretfully in her thoughts since her last sight of Catherine, sank out of them altogether. ‘She has been everything in the world to us, Mr. Elsmere.’ ‘I know she has,’ he said simply. ‘She shall be everything in the world to you still. I have had hard work to persuade her. There will be no chance for me if you don’t help me.’ Another breathless pause, Then Mrs. Leyburn timidly drew him to her, and he stooped his tall head and kissed her like a son. ‘Oh, I must go to Catherine!’ she said hurrying away, her pretty withered cheeks wet with tears. Then the girls threw themselves on Elsmere. The talk was all animation and excitement for the moment, not a tragic touch in it. It was as well perhaps that Catherine was not there to hear! ‘I give you fair warning,’ said Rose, as she bade him good-night, ‘that I don’t know how to behave to a brother. And I am equally sure that Mrs. Thornburgh doesn’t know how to behave to _fiancé_.’ Robert threw up his hands in mock terror at the name and departed. ‘We are abandoned,’ cried Rose, flitting herself into the chair again--then with a little flash of half irresolute wickedness--‘and we are free! Oh, I hope she will be happy!’ And she caught Agnes wildly round the neck as though she would drown her first words in her last. ‘Madcap!’ cried Agnes struggling. ‘Leave me at least a little breath to wish Catherine joy!’ And they both fled up-stairs. There was indeed no prouder woman in the three kingdoms than Mrs. Thornburgh that night. After all the agitation down-stairs she could not persuade herself to go to bed. She first knocked up Sarah and communicated the news; then she sat down before a pier-glass in her own room studying the person who had found Catherine Leyburn a husband.