"I _do_ so like really interesting and intellectual young men, who don't give themselves any airs about it," she said to nobody in particular, when she strolled back to the drawing-room with her three girls; "and one does so _very_ seldom meet with them!" She threw herself into a low chair, snatched up a fan, and began to fan herself vigorously. The discovery that a press writer of Paul Brion's standing meant a cultured man of the world impressed her strongly; the thought of him as a new son for herself, clever, enterprising, active-minded as she was--a man to be governed, perhaps, in a motherly way, and to be proud of whether he let himself be governed or not--danced tantalisingly through her brain. She felt it necessary to put a very strong check upon herself to keep her from being foolish. She escaped that danger, however. A high sense of duty to Patty held her back from foolishness. Still she could not help being kind to the young couple while she had the opportunity; turning her head when they strolled into the conservatory after the men came in from the dining-room, and otherwise shutting her eyes to their joint proceedings. And they had a peaceful and sad and happy time, by her gracious favour, for two days and a half--until the mail ship carried one of them to England, and left the other behind. CHAPTER XLIX. YELVERTON. Patty went "home," and stayed there for two years; but it was never home to her, though all her friends and connections, save one, were with her--because that one was absent. She saw "the great Alps and the Doge's palace," and all the beauty and glory of that great world that she had so ardently dreamed of and longed for; travelling in comfort and luxury, and enjoying herself thoroughly all the while. She was presented at Court--"Miss Yelverton, by her sister, Mrs. Kingscote Yelverton"--and held a distinguished place in the _Court Journal_ and in the gossip of London society for the better part of two seasons. She was taught to know that she was a beauty, if she had never known it before; she was made to understand the value of a high social position and the inestimable advantage of large means (and she did understand it perfectly, being a young person abundantly gifted with common sense); and she was offered these good things for the rest of her life, and a coronet into the bargain. Nevertheless, she chose to abide by her first choice, and to remain faithful to her penniless press writer under all temptations. She passed through the fire of every trying ordeal that the ingenuity of Mrs. Duff-Scott could devise; her unpledged constancy underwent the severest tests that, in the case of a girl of her tastes and character, it could possibly be subjected to; and at the end of a year and a half, when the owner of the coronet above-mentioned raised the question of her matrimonial prospects, she announced to him, and subsequently to her family, that they had been irrevocably settled