So he went away, leaving Mrs Atheling a good deal disquieted. She had got over the first excitement of Miss Anastasia’s great intelligence and the sudden preparations of Charlie. She had scarcely time enough, indeed, to give a thought to these things, when her son demanded this history from her, and sent her mind away into quite a different channel. Now she sat still in Charlie’s room, pondering painfully, with the travelling-bag lying quite unheeded at her feet. At one moment she pronounced the whole matter perfectly impossible--at the next, triumphantly inconsequent, she leaped to the full consummation of the hope, and saw her own pretty Marian--dazzling vision!--the lady of Winterbourne! and again the heart of the good mother fell, and she remembered little Bride. Louis, as he was now, having no greater friends than their own simple family, and no pretensions whatever either to birth or fortune, was a very different person from that other Louis who might be heir of lands and lordship and the family pride of the Riverses. Much perplexed, in great uncertainty and pain, mused Mrs Atheling, half-resentful of that grand discovery of Miss Anastasia, which might plunge them all into renewed trouble; while Charlie trudged into Oxford for his Italian grammar--and Louis and Marian wandered through the enchanted wood, drawing homeward--and Rachel sang to the children--and Agnes wondered by herself over the secret which was to be confided only to Mamma. CHAPTER II. A CRISIS. That night Charlie had need of all his diplomatic talents. Before he returned from Oxford, his mother, by way of precaution lest Agnes should betray the sudden and mysterious visit of Miss Anastasia to Marian, contrived to let her elder daughter know mysteriously, something of the scope and object of the sudden journey for which it was necessary to prepare her brother, driving Agnes, as was to be supposed, into a very fever of suppressed excitement, joy, triumph, and anxiety. Mrs Atheling, conscious, hurried, and studying deeply not to betray herself--and Agnes, watching every one, stopping questions, and guarding off suspicions with prudence much too visible--were quite enough of themselves to rouse every other member of the little company to lively pursuit after the secret. Charlie was assailed by every shape and form of question: Where was he going--what was he to do? He showed no cleverness, we are bound to acknowledge, in evading these multitudinous interrogations; he turned an impenetrable front upon them, and made the most commonplace answers, making vast incursions all the time into Hannah’s cakes and Mamma’s bread-and-butter. “He had to go back immediately to the office; he believed he had got a new client for old Foggo,” said Charlie, with the utmost coolness; “making no secret of it at all,” according to Mamma’s indignant commentary. “To the office!--are you only going home, after all?” cried Marian.