Earl Verner had taken several opportunities to renew his acquaintance with Amy, and we must do his lordship the justice to say that her sudden and unexpected advancement in fortune had little or no influence upon his course of wooing, for he was hit at that first interview, hit irredeemably. There was something in Amy besides her good looks which had fairly fascinated the earl. The idea of a thoroughly companionable and intellectual woman had never presented itself to him before. Hitherto women had represented to him trouble, bother, putting yourself out of the way, and everything that was not being easy and lazy and lolling about, and grubbing amongst old books, and fadding with ancient china, and being constantly delighted with pictures. Woman engrossed all this in herself. She wanted to be old china and books and pictures and antiquities and everything all in one; and this notion did not suit Earl Verner; but in Amy he felt that there would not be this autocracy. She was evidently as much interested in these things as he was himself, and, considering how much his condescension in marrying her would elevate her in the social scale, he would have an influence over her that he could not hope to have over a woman in his own walk of life. The more he saw of Amy Tallant the more enraptured he became, and well he might, for Amy spared no pains to make herself charming and agreeable in his eyes; indeed, Amy had vowed to herself that she would marry him. She would show Lionel Hammerton what a mistake he had made when he sported with the deep feelings of a girl like her. * * * * * And so in due course his lordship proposed for Amy’s hand, and was accepted. * * * * * Meanwhile, Phœbe Somerton had insisted upon staying at the Hall Farm. Her obstinacy upon this point had appeared at first to give Amy a good deal of pain; but Phœbe explained that she had marked out a line of conduct for herself as the line of duty under the circumstances, and, whatever she might do in the future, at present she would certainly live with her father and mother. Amy soon saw that there was no pique in this, that it meant no ill feeling towards herself, and the two girls understood each other well. Amy was too much engrossed in her own scheme to let anything else trouble her.