"You pay us a very short visit," said Mrs. Gosselin, intensely demure over the fine web of her knitting. Mrs. Ashbury looked hard for an instant into her bland eyes, then she gave poor Maud another poke. She alluded to a reason and expressed regrets; but she got her daughter into motion, and Guy Firminger passed through the garden with the two ladies to put them into their carriage. Mrs. Ashbury protested particularly against any further escort. While he was absent the other parent and child, sitting together on their pretty lawn in the yellow light of the August afternoon, talked of the frightful way Maud Ashbury had "gone off," and of something else as to which there was more to say when their third visitor came back. "Don't think me grossly inquisitive if I ask you where they told the coachman to drive," said Mary Gosselin as the young man dropped, near her, into a low wicker chair, stretching his long legs as if he had been one of the family. Firminger stared. "Upon my word I didn't particularly notice, but I think the old lady said 'Home'." "There, mamma dear!" the girl exclaimed triumphantly. But Mrs. Gosselin only knitted on, persisting in profundity. She replied that "Home" was a feint, that Mrs. Ashbury would already have given another order, and that it was her wish to hurry off to Northerley that had made her keep them from going with her to the carriage, in which they would have seen her take a suspected direction. Mary explained to Guy Firminger that her mother had perceived poor Mrs. Ashbury to be frantic to reach the house at which she had heard that Mr. Raddle was staying. The young man stared again and wanted to know what she desired to do with Mr. Raddle. Mary replied that her mother would tell him what Mrs. Ashbury desired to do with poor Maud. "What all Christian mothers desire," said Mrs. Gosselin. "Only she doesn't know how." "To marry the dear child to Mr. Raddle," Mary added, smiling. Firminger's vagueness expanded with the subject. "Do you mean you want to marry _your_ dear child to that little cad?" he asked of the elder lady. "I speak of the general duty--not of the particular case," said Mrs. Gosselin. "Mamma _does_ know how," Mary went on. "Then why ain't you married?" "Because we're not acting, like the Ashburys, with injudicious precipitation. Is that correct?" the girl demanded, laughing, of her mother. "Laugh at me, my dear, as much as you like--it's very lucky you've got me," Mrs. Gosselin declared. "She means I can't manage for myself," said Mary to the visitor. "What nonsense you talk!" Mrs. Gosselin murmured, counting stitches. "I can't, mamma, I can't; I admit it," Mary continued. "But injudicious precipitation and--what's the other thing?--creeping prudence, seem to come out in very much the same place," the young man objected. "Do you mean since I too wither on the tree?"