"Why, my mother. That's her attitude, and your walk's her walk, and your voice her voice. You're her--all over! Why, when I saw you by the Pool just now, a hundred yards off, strolling on the bank----" "Yes?" she half-whispered. "You started, didn't you?" "Yes, I started. I thought for a moment I saw my mother's ghost. I thought my mother had come back to Blent. And it is--you!" He threw out his hands in a gesture of what seemed despair. XII FIGHTERS AND DOUBTERS "Miss S. wasn't so far wrong after all!" exclaimed Mina Zabriska, flinging down a letter on the table by her. It was three days after Addie Tristram's funeral. Mina had attended that ceremony, or rather watched it from a little way off. She had seen Gainsborough's spare humble figure, she had seen too, with an acute interest, the tall slim girl all in black, heavily veiled, who walked beside him, just behind the new Lord Tristram. She had also, of course, seen all the neighbors who were looking on like herself, but who gave their best attention to Janie Iver and disappointed Miss S. by asking hardly any questions about the Gainsboroughs. Little indeed would have been said concerning them except for the fact that Gainsborough (true to his knack of the unlucky) caught a chill on the occasion and was confined to his bed down at Blent. A most vexatious occurrence for Lord Tristram, said Miss S. But one that he ought to bear patiently, added Mrs Trumbler. And after all, both ladies agreed, it would have been hardly decent to turn the Gainsboroughs out on Monday, as it was well known the new lord had proposed. But the Gainsboroughs were not in Mina's thoughts just now. "Nothing is to be made public yet--please remember this. But I want you to know that I have just written to Harry Tristram to say I will marry him. I have had a great deal of trouble, dear Mina, but I think I have done right, looking at it all round. Except my own people I am telling only one friend besides you ('Bob Broadley!' said Mina with a nod, as she read the letter the second time). But I want you to know; and please tell your uncle too. I hope you will both give me your good wishes. I do think I'm acting wisely; and I thought I had no right to keep him waiting and worrying about this when he has so much to think of besides. You must stay at Merrion after I come to Blent.--JANIE."