might be supposed to be a wedding breakfast. She had held by her notions of decorum stoutly, and would hear of no hole-and-corner proceedings. And now when fortune was smiling upon them, when his daughter had got hold of someone (this was Polly’s elegant way of putting it), and when the way would be clear, what if he failed her? The workroom with its blaze of light and its curious spectators had been intolerable to her, but a cold shudder crossed her when she got out of doors into the darkness of the lane. Perhaps she ought to have stayed at any cost, not to have left him in the midst of so many temptations. Her heart seemed to sink into her shoes. Oh, why had she been so silly! Her hopes seemed all dropping, disappearing from her. To sink into simple Polly Featherston, with no dazzling prospect of future elevation, would be death to her, she felt, now. Polly was half way up the lane before the Captain, coming along at his leisure, made up to her; and, what with passion and fright, she had scarcely any voice left. “Oh, you have come after all!” was all she could manage to say. And she hurried on, so rapidly that he protested. “If you want to talk, how can we talk if we race like this?” he said. “Who wants to talk?” cried Polly breathless; but nevertheless she paused in her headlong career. They went up the hill together, on the steep side next the Abbey, where there never was anybody, and there the Captain discoursed to Polly about his new hopes. She would have liked it better had he decided how the old ones were to be realised. But still, as he was confidential and opened everything to her as to his natural confidant, her excitement gradually subsided, and her trust in him returned. She listened patiently while he recounted to her all the results that would be sure to follow, when an influential son-in-law, a member of a noble family, brought him to the recollection of the Commander-in-Chief. “They think I’m shelved and superannuated,” he said; “but let me but have an opening--all I want is an opening; and then you can go and select the handsomest phaeton and the prettiest pair of ponies, my lady--” Polly laughed and reddened with pleasure at this address, but she said prudently, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I wouldn’t give up being a Chevalier. It’s a nice little house and a nice little income too.”