‘Oh, yes, she has had her way. She is a queer mixture, is Rose. I see a touch of the old Leyburn recklessness in her; and then there is the beauty and refinement of bar mother’s side of the family. Lately she has got quite out of hand. She went to stay with some relations they have in Manchester, got drawn into a musical set there, took to these funny gowns, and now she and Catherine are, always half at war. Poor Catherine said to me the other day, with tears, in her eyes, that she knew Rose thought her as hard as iron. “But I promised papa.” She makes herself miserable and it’s no use. I wish the little wild thing would get herself well married. She’s not meant for this humdrum place and she may kick over the traces.’ ‘She’s pretty enough for anything and anybody,’ said Robert. The vicar looked at him sharply, but the young man’s critical and meditative look reassured him. The next day, just before early dinner, Rose and Agnes, who had been for a walk, were startled, as they were turning into their own gate, by the frantic waving of a white handkerchief from the Vicarage garden. It was Mrs. Thornburgh’s accepted way of calling the attention of the Burwood inmates, and the girls walked on. They found the good lady waiting for them in the drive in a characteristic glow and flutter. ‘My dears, I have been looking out for you all the morning! I should have come over but for the stores coming, and a tiresome man from Randall’s--I’ve had to bargain with him for a whole hour about taking back those sweets. I was swindled, of course, but we should have died if we’d had to eat them up. Well, now, my dears--’ The vicar’s wife paused. Her square, short figure was between the two girls; she had an arm of each, and she looked significantly, from one to another, her gray curls, flapping across her face as she did so. ‘Go on, Mrs. Thornburgh,’ cried Rose. ‘You make us quite nervous.’ ‘How do ypu like Mr. Elsmere?’ she inquired, solemnly. ‘Very much,’ said both, in chorus. Mrs. Thornburgh surveyed Rose’s smiling frankness with a little sigh. Things were going grandly, but she could imagine a disposition of affairs which would have given her personally more pleasure. ‘_How--would--you--like_--him for a brother-in-law?’ she inquired, beginning in a whisper, with slow emphasis, patting Rose’s arm, and bringing out the last words with a rush. ‘Agnes caught the twinkle in Rose’s eye, but she answered for them both demurely. ‘We have no objection to entertain the idea. But you must explain.’ ‘Explain!’ cried Mrs. Thornburgh. ‘I should think it explains itself. At least if you’d been in this house for the last twenty-four hours you’d think so. Since the moment when he first met her, it’s been “Miss Leyburn,” “Miss Leyburn,” all the time. One might have seen it with half an eye from the beginning.