"Hadn't I better put on a bonnet, Allan?" "No, no. You will go in your hat, just as you are. You will treat her without the slightest ceremony--treat her as your daughter. Do you know, mother, I am uncommonly glad you never honoured me with a sister." "Why, Allan?" "Because, if I marry Suzette, she will be your only daughter. There will be no one to be jealous of her, in Suffolk or here." "What a foolish fancy! Well, give me a daughter as soon as you like. I am getting old, Allan, and your father's secluded habits leave me very often alone. His books are more his companions than I am----" "Ah, but you know how he loves you, mother," interrupted Allan. They were on their way to the gate by this time, Lady Emily in her travelling-hat and loose tan gloves, just as she had been going about the gardens and meadows in the morning, Allan twirling his stick in very gladness of heart. They were going to her. If she were out, they would go and find her; at her aunt's, at the Vicarage, on the links yonder; anywhere but at Discombe. He hoped she had not gone to Discombe. "Yes, he is fond of me, I believe, in his own way. There never was a better husband," Lady Emily answered thoughtfully. "But I know, Allan! I know!" "What, mother?" "I know that I was not his first love--that I was only a _pis aller_--that there is something wanting in his life, and always must be till the end. I should brood over it all, perhaps, Allan, and end by making myself unhappy, if it were not for my farm; but all those living creatures occupy my mind. One living fox-terrier is worth a whole picture-gallery." Suzette was at home. The after-math had been cut in the meadow in front of Marsh House, a somewhat swampy piece of ground at some seasons, but tolerably dry just now, after a hot summer. Suzette and Bessie Edgefield were tossing the scented grass in the afternoon sunshine, and fancying themselves useful haymakers. They threw down their hay-forks at the approach of visitors, and there was no more work done that day, though Allan offered to take a fork. They all sat in the garden talking, or wandered about among the flowers in a casual way, and while Bessie and Lady Emily were looking at the contents of the only greenhouse, Allan found himself alone with Suzette in a long gravel walk on the other side of the lawn-like meadow, along all the length of which there was a broad border filled with old-fashioned perennials that had been growing and spreading and multiplying themselves for half a century. A row of old medlar and hazel trees sheltered this border from the north wind, and hid the boundary fence. "Dear old garden!" cried Allan. "How much nicer an old garden is than a new one!"