After this little introduction, Mary took the lawyer’s letter with some slight tremulousness. She was nearly seven-and-twenty by this time, and ought, she said to herself, to have been quite steady about such matters. Of course some day Ben would marry, and so long as it was any one who would make him happy she could only be glad. Many a wandering thought about Millicent Tracy had come into her mind. Had she been faithful to him? Had there been any intercourse between them? Had he kept steadfast to his imagination of her for all these years? For it was only an imagination, as Mary felt sure. Every letter that came from Ben had caused her a certain tremor,--not, as she said to herself, that it would make any difference to her; but if he were to bind himself to a woman unworthy of him! And now that he was coming back so soon, it was with a thrill of more intense expectation than usual that she took Mr. Ponsonby’s letter in her hand. But there was nothing about marrying or giving in marriage in that sober epistle. It intimated to Mrs. Renton, in the first place, that the time specified in her husband’s will had nearly expired; that he had received a letter from her son Ben, informing him that he intended to meet him at the Manor, along with the other members of the family, on the 15th of September; and that, accordingly, Mr. Ponsonby was coming to Renton next day to go over the property with the bailiff, and see with his own eyes the condition in which everything was, that there might be no delay, when the time came, in making everything over to the heir. All that Mrs. Renton had made of this very distinct letter was the fact that the lawyer was to pay her a visit, and that there was something about Ben. But indeed Mr. Ponsonby did not write a legible hand. ‘Then it is just what Ben told us about coming home,’ said Mrs. Renton, ‘though he was not so particular to me in naming the day. He said the beginning of September, if you recollect, Mary; and Frank and his wife are coming by the next mail. I am afraid the children will make a dreadful commotion in the house, and altogether it will be so odd to see Renton full of people again. Of course, Laurie is coming, too. I don’t know what I shall do with them all. They can’t expect me to have parties and that sort of thing for them, Mary, in my state of health?’ ‘No, dear godmamma,’ said Mary, soothingly, ‘they will not expect anything of the kind; and you will never think of the trouble when you have all the boys at home. Fancy Frank having boys of his own!’ she cried, with a little laugh. The choice lay between laughing and crying, and the first was certainly the best. ‘I hope his wife has kept up her practice,’ said Mrs. Renton, still with a cloud on her brow, ‘since that was what he married her for.’ ‘Godmamma!’ cried Mary, with consternation.