"Am I the true mistress of Heron Dyke?--or, rather, shall I continue to be?" interrupted Ella. "I will not hear a word of that nonsense," flashed Mrs. Carlyon. "My dear, I speak of you as you are: and I say that it is positively not seemly for a young lady in your position to wed a poor newspaper reporter." "Ella put her arms round her aunt's neck and kissed her." "Worldly-wise maxims do not come with a good grace from your lips, Aunt Gertrude," she whispered. "I have heard you say many a time that your marriage was one of pure affection, but I have never heard you say that you regretted it. You must let me be happy in my own unambitious way." Mrs. Carlyon sighed. How differently the young and the old look at things!--and how impossible it is to reconcile the views. Not that she regretted her own choice: and she supposed she should have to put up with this one. Ella was her own mistress, under no control. "Is it quite irrevocable, my love?" "I think so, auntie dear. You can ask Mr. Conroy." Irrevocable Mrs. Carlyon found it to be. After a short while given to private lamentation, she resolved to make the best of it; and she did so with a good grace. One very powerful advocate in her mind was Edward Conroy himself. She could not help liking him, admiring him; she mentally acknowledged that were she a young woman with a virgin heart, it would have been lost to Conroy. After frankly telling him that she did not approve of the match on account of his want of position, but that she could not and should not take any steps to hinder it, she became pleasant with him as before. Conroy received the rebuke with becoming humility: but he did not offer to relinquish Miss Winter. Now that she was at Heron Dyke, Mrs. Carlyon determined to remain. With Mr. Conroy at the Hall every day, she considered it her duty to be at hand to afford proper countenance and support to Ella. Mrs. Toynbee was all very well, but she was not a relative: and duty was duty with Mrs. Carlyon. Her cough must take its chance this winter. It was possible that the bracing air of the east coast might prove as beneficial to her in the long-run as the sun-warmed but relaxing breezes of Southern France. And so she settled down in the old house, to stay there as long as might be expedient. When Mr. Charles Plackett was at Heron Dyke, he had promised to write to Miss Winter as soon as he had communicated with his client of Nunham Priors. Instead of Charles Plackett writing, Mr. Denison himself wrote, and the following is what he said: "Nunham Priors. "My Dear Young Kinswoman, "You have often been in my thoughts since I saw you in London, now some weeks ago, and I look forward with great pleasure to your promised visit to me at Nunham Priors next spring.