She might have added "and the trades-people _so_ trusting"; but on that subject she was silent, though she intended that they should go on trusting indefinitely. Indeed, thus far the scheme worked almost too easily to be interesting. Sir Anthony Pendered outstayed the other visitors, and he stopped unconscionably long for a first call; but that was the fault of his hostesses, who made themselves so charming that the man lost count of time--and perhaps lost his head a little, also. At first it seemed that Marian’s impression was right, and that, despite Mercy’s retiring ways, it was the young girl who attracted him. This made Marian secretly sad; for when she had seen Sir Anthony looking up from his prayer-book in the adjoining pew, she had said in her heart, with a sigh: "How good he would be to a woman! How he would pet her and take care of her! To be his wife would be very different from----" but she had guiltily broken short that sentence in the midst. Persuaded and fired by Joan, she had entered into this adventure. She had even laughed when Joan selected the neighbourhood of Toragel because a Society paper announced the advent of a particularly desirable bachelor. "You will be the prettiest and nicest woman in the county, of course; therefore, he will fall in love with you and propose. He will marry you; you will live happy ever after; and you will be able to pay all the debts that we shall have run up in the process of securing him," the girl had remarked. But now, when the "desirable bachelor" had become a living entity, and she felt her heart yearning towards him, Marian’s conscience grew sore. Still, though she told herself that she could not carry out the plan and try to win Sir Anthony Pendered, it was a blow to see him prefer Joan.