Miss Hewitt was thus got rid of, though not without trouble; but Patty did not find it easy to forget what she had said, especially when it came true to the letter; for week after week went by and not a step, except that of the doctor, crossed the threshold of Greyshott. Patty took her place in the drawing-room every afternoon, with everything arranged very cleverly, and looking as like as an imitation could be to the little _mise en scène_ of a young lady waiting for her guests; but no guests ever came. At length, after much waiting, there appeared--exactly as Aunt Patience had said--the rector! accompanied by his young daughter, for he was a widower. The rector called her Patty in the first moment of meeting, and though he amended that in a confused manner, and gave her finally her full honours as Mrs. Piercey, it was difficult to get over that beginning, which threw his young companion into utter discomfiture. And then, to make matters worse, he delivered a little lecture upon the responsibilities of her new position and the difficulty of the duties that would come upon her. “You must not let your mind dwell on your disadvantages,” he said kindly; “everybody, after a while, will make allowances for you.” “You are quite mistaken if you think I want to have allowances made for me,” said Patty, provoked. And what could the rector reply? He said, “Oh!” thus showing the poverty of the English language, and how little a man in such a predicament can find to say for himself; and then he began hurriedly to talk parish talk, and ask Mrs. Piercey’s patronage for various charities--charities by which Patty Hewitt might almost have been in a position to benefit so short a time ago. “That’s well over,” he said to his daughter, wiping his forehead, when they went out of the gates of Greyshott. And he did not come again, nor she--not even the girl. And nobody came; and of all the difficult things in the world Mrs. Gervase Piercey found nothing so difficult as to explain to her grand maid how it was that no visitor was ever seen at Greyshott. The thing itself was bad enough, but to explain it to Jerningham was still worse. “You see we are still in deep mourning,” Mrs. Piercey said. “Yes, ma’am,” said Jerningham, with a sniff of polite scepticism. For a lady who, however deep her mourning might be, had not a single friend to come to see her, was more than Jerningham could understand. And Patty sat alone in her fine drawing-room, and walked about her great house, and spoke to nobody but old Sir Giles and her own Softy; and thought many times, with a kind of alarm, of what Aunt Patience had said. Had it not already come true? CHAPTER XXXIV.