“Oh! my dear, my dear!” Lady Cranstoun murmured, wringing her limp, white hands, “I am so thankful that you have come back. Your father has returned, and has been asking me questions. He compelled me to tell him where you were. I expected a storm, but he said nothing, which seems so much more dangerous. I am in such terror of what he may say to you.” Stella drew a footstool to the side of Lady Cranstoun’s sofa, and taking one of her hands in both her own, gently kissed it, and rubbed her cheek against it. “Mamma,” she said, “how would you like to leave the Chase, and come and stay with me in a nice house, where every one would love you, and no one would bully and frighten you, and where you would have nice servants instead of spies, and where your relations would be honored and welcomed, instead of being insulted whenever they came to visit you?” “It sounds delightful,” returned the poor lady, sighing, “but, of course, it is impossible. What put such ideas into your head?” “Mr. Pritchard has just asked me to marry him.” Lady Cranstoun sat up on her sofa. “My dear, you astonish me!” she exclaimed. “It is so extremely sudden.” “He says he decided to propose to me as soon as he saw me yesterday,” returned Stella, demurely. “But it is utterly out of the question. Of course he is a gentleman, and well educated, and has very agreeable manners; but, my dear, he told me himself that he is a farmer’s son, and has neither money nor family. Oh, dear--oh dear! it is all my fault for allowing you to be so much with him. But he seemed so little like a love-making sort of man, so plain and intellectual, I never dreamed any harm would come of it. I did certainly suggest to Dr. Graham that I ought not to leave you together while we were playing chess; but he reassured me so strongly that I thought no more about it. Sir Philip will be furious. He will never forgive me. And you--my poor dear child--I hope, oh, I do hope, that you have not grown fond of him.”