"After his breakfast!" cried the half-witted man. "He has breakfasted mighty early! But now--oh, I guess it; he has gone to London. I heard her tell him to go." "Heard who tell him?" demanded Mistress Bertha, with an air of some surprise. "Why, pretty Mistress Alice Herbert, to be sure," replied the other. "Did not I hear all they said as they came down the walk and through the woods?" "Nay, then," said the housekeeper, smiling, as far as she was ever known to smile, "I suppose he's gone to buy the wedding ring, and have the marriage settlements drawn up. Methinks he might have told me, too." "Nay, Mistress Bertha," replied the other, "no wedding rings! no marriage settlements! Mistress Alice is not for him!" A slight flush came over the pale cheek of her to whom he spoke. "Not for him!" she exclaimed! "Does she refuse him, then!" "Yes, to be sure," replied John Graves; "every man is refused once in his life. I was refused myself, for that matter; but I was wise, and resolved that I would never be refused again." "Art thou lying, or art thou speaking truth?" demanded Mistress Bertha, fixing her eyes sternly upon him. "Did she refuse him?" "Truth!" replied the man: "I always speak truth! She refused him, as sure as I am alive: nothing he could say would move her. I knew it very well, and I told him so before; but he would not believe me." Bertha stood and gazed upon the ground for several minutes "I do believe," she said, speaking to herself, "I do believe that things possessed without right have a doom upon them, which prevents them from bringing happiness even to those who hold them, unconscious of holding them wrongly. Now is this poor boy, notwithstanding all his great wealth and high expectations, destined to be crossed in this long-cherished love, which was to make both himself and his father so happy! Poor youth! how long and deeply he has loved her! How his heart must have ached when I talked about her this morning! and shall I help to take from him anything he possesses?" "We ought always to do what is right, Mistress Bertha," exclaimed the half-witted man, whose presence she had totally forgotten. "And both you and I know that right has not always been done." "Out upon the fool!" exclaimed the housekeeper. "Hold thy mad tongue! Now darest thou prate of right and wrong, not having wit to keep thee from running thy head against a post! Get thee in before me! Thou shalt give the Earl an account of this refusal!" John Graves slunk away before her flashing eye and angry words, like a cowed dog, looking ever and anon to the right and left, as if for some means to escape; but she kept him in view, following closely upon his steps till they both entered the large mansion before them. CHAPTER VII.