"Oh, very delighted, very, I'm sure," agreed Lady Sarah. "You'll enjoy showing it to Margaret all by yourself much better," said Jenny to Amyas. "I'll come another day soon, and have tea with Lady Sarah, if she'll let me." "Very delighted, very," Lady Sarah repeated. She rose to take leave; this time she did herself kiss Margaret on the cheek. I think we were all waiting to see whether, in her opinion, the terms of the treaty demanded a kiss for Jenny also. Lady Sarah decided in the negative; Jenny's particularly erect head, as she held out her hand, may have aided--and certainly welcomed--the conclusion. We escorted her to her carriage with most honorable ceremony. Then we sighed relief--save Chat, who had been, from a modest background, an admiring spectator of the scene. "She's not very effusive," said Chat, "but she has the grand manner, hasn't she, Mr. Austin?" "I never knew what it really meant till to-day, Miss Chatters." "She probably never hated anything so much in her whole life," Jenny remarked to me, when we were next alone together, "so it's really hardly fair to criticise her manner. But I rejoice from the bottom of my heart that she didn't think it necessary to kiss me." "Since you escaped this time, I should think you might escape altogether." "Well, the wedding day will be a point of danger," she reminded me, "but I'm pretty safe against its becoming habitual. We both hate the idea of it too much for that." Then--a week later--came the public announcement, made duly and in due form in the _Times and Herald_: "Between Lord Lacey, son and heir of the Right Honorable the Earl of Fillingford, and Margaret, daughter of the late Leonard Octon, Esq." The sensation is not to be described. So many things were explained, so many mysteries cleared up! Folks knew now why Lacey had been so much at Breysgate, Sir John Aspenick learned for whom Oxley Lodge was wanted, and Cartmell understood why he had been forced to disburse that much grudged five hundred pounds for early possession. For, with the announcement, came an inspired leading article, revealing the main terms of the proposed settlement; a little discretion was exercised as to the exact figures, but enough was said to show that, besides the gift of the Oxley Grange estate as it stood, there were large sums to pass both now and in the future. Let the parties have been who they might, such a transaction would have commanded the universal attention of the countryside; when it took place between Lord Fillingford's heir and the late Mr. Octon's only daughter, people with memories recalled and retold their stories, and found newcomers ready indeed to listen. Once again Jenny filled all Catsford and all the neighborhood with gossip, speculation, and applause. "I told you you'd have to undo the purse-strings to some style," I said to Cartmell. "What do you think of this, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer?"