But in the outer world the summer still kept its glory, the sky its undisturbed azure, the flowers their jewel hues. Never had Bindon looked fairer, more nobly itself. Preparations went on apace for the reception of the visitor. Ellinor personally saw to every detail—she piqued herself that no one could reproach her with not carrying out to the finest line of conscientiousness her duties as housekeeper of Sir David’s home. A little paler, a little colder, more silently and with just a note of sternness, she moved about her tasks. Nothing was made easy for her: the household, scenting a possible change, became more openly inclined to mutiny. Master Simon, also, seemed to become more exacting in his demands upon her time. Sir David, on the other hand, had withdrawn almost as completely as had been his wont before her arrival. And her woman’s pride and tact alike kept her from those raids upon his tower privacy, which but a little time ago had caused him so much pleasure, it seemed, and herself such infinite sweetness. It was hard, too, to have to meet Margery’s paroxysm of astonishment; Margery’s ostentatious outburst of joy at the thought of “her dear young lady coming back to her rightful place at last”; Margery’s insolence of triumph as regarded “the interloper,” astutely conveyed in such humble garments that to notice it would have been but a crowning humiliation. “Eh, to think, ma’am,” the ex-housekeeper would say in her innocent voice, “that it should have been that very letter I handed you myself, never dreaming, that’s brought this blessed reconciliation about! It do seem like the finger of the Lord. Ah, ma’am, but you must be glad in your heart, to feel yourself the instrument of peace. Who knows, if the master would have taken it from any hand but yours, he that used to return them as regular and just as fast as they came!” And then came parson and Madam Tutterville: he, as beseemed the God-chosen and state-appointed minister of the gospel of charity, most duly (and unconvincingly) approving the proposed reconciliation; and, as man of the world, most humanly and convincingly dubious of its results: she, openly bewailing, with all her store of texts and feminine logic, so inconvenient a hitch in her secret plans. Ellinor had to receive them both. For the lower door of Sir David’s turret stairs was bolted, and Master Simon on his side had stoutly refused any manner of interview with anyone so sturdily healthy as the rector, or so disdainful of his remedies as the rector’s lady. “Under every law,” said Doctor Tutterville, “the Jewish, the Pagan, the Philosophic and the Christian in its many variations, it has been enjoined upon our human weakness that it is advisable to forgive: _Æquum est peccatis veniam poscentem reddere rursus_. So the rector, acknowledging his share of frailty—a share so pleasant to himself and so inoffensive to others that it was no wonder he showed little desire to repudiate it.