A fortnight after this the Major came over and besought her to return with him for a week at Chericoke. Mrs. Lightfoot had taken to her bed, he said sadly, and the whole place was rapidly falling to rack and ruin. “We need your hands to put it straight again,” he added, “and Molly told me on no account to come back without you. I am at your mercy, my dear.” “Why, I should love to go,” replied Betty, with the thought of Dan at her heart. “I'll be ready in a minute,” and she ran upstairs to find her mother, and to pack her things. The Major waited for her standing; and when she came down, followed by Petunia with her clothes, he helped her, with elaborate courtesy, into the old coach before the portico. “It takes me back to my wedding day, Betty,” he said, as he stepped in after her and slammed the door. “It isn't often that I carry off a pretty girl so easily.” “Now I know that you didn't carry off Mrs. Lightfoot easily,” returned Betty, laughing from sheer lightness of spirits. “She has told me the whole story, sir, from the evening that she wore the peach-blow brocade, that made you fall in love with her on the spot, to the day that she almost broke down at the altar. You had a narrow escape from bachelorship, sir, so you needn't boast.” The Major chuckled in his corner. “I don't doubt that Molly told you so,” he replied, “but, between you and me, I don't believe it ever occurred to her until forty years afterwards. She got it out of one of those silly romances she reads in bed--and, take my word for it, you'll find it somewhere in the pages of her Mrs. Radcliffe, or her Miss Burney. Molly's a sensible woman, my child,--I'm the last man to deny it--but she always did read trash. You won't believe me, I dare say, but she actually tried to faint when I kissed her in the carriage after her wedding--and, bless my soul, I came to find that she had 'Evelina' tucked away under her cape.” “Why, she is the most sensible woman in the world,” said Betty, “and I'm quite sure that she was only fitting herself to your ideas, sir. No, you can't make me believe it of Mrs. Lightfoot.” “My ideas never took the shape of an Evelina,” dissented the Major, warmly, “but it's a dangerous taste, my dear, the taste for trash. I've always said that it ruined poor Jane, with all her pride. She got into her head all kind of notions about that scamp Montjoy, with his pale face and his long black hair. Poor girl, poor girl! I tried to bring her up on Homer and Milton, but she took to her mother's bookshelf as a duck to water.” He wiped his eyes, and Betty patted his hand, and wondered if “the scamp Montjoy” looked the least bit like his son.