"Marian darling, you must answer this instantly! I have no doubt as to the tone of your reply, but I can do nothing until I get it, and time presses. Don't be afraid of any ill-feeling on the part of Lord Hetherington or any one here. I have been able to render them something of a service--I will tell you about it when we meet--and they will all be delighted at anything which brings good fortune to me. And now good-bye! Think how little time now before I shall hold you in my arms! Write at once. God bless you, now and ever. "Your WALTER." Sunday morning at Woolgreaves; bright splendid sunshine, the frost all gone, and Nature, renovated by her six months' sleep, asserting herself in green bud and lovely almond blossom, and fresh sprouting herbage on every side. Far away on the horizon lay Brocksopp, the week-day smoke cloud, which no wind dispelled, yet hovering like a heavy pall over its sabbath stillness; but the intervening landscape was fresh and fine, and calculated to inspire peaceful thoughts and hopeful aspirations in all who looked on it. Such thoughts and such aspirations the contemplation of the scene inspired in old Mrs. Ashurst, who sat propped up by pillows in a large easy-chair in her sitting-room, gazing out of the window, looking at nothing, but enjoying everything with the tranquil serenity of old age. For several years past there had not been much life in the old lady, and there was very little now; her vital powers, never very strong, had been decaying slowly but surely, and Dr. Osborne knew that the time was not far distant when the widow of his old friend would be called away to rejoin the husband she had so dearly loved in the Silent Land. "A case of gradual decay, my dear sir," said the little doctor, who had been up all night, bringing the heir of a neighbouring squire into the world, and who had stopped at Woolgreaves on his way home, and asked for breakfast--a meal which he was then taking in company with his host; "what we call the _vis vitae_ quietly giving way." "And by what I gather from you, doctor, I fear our old friend will not be much longer with us?" "It is impossible to say, but I should think not. Sad thing for the daughter; she's very much attached to her mother, and will feel the loss very much. Wonderful girl that, sir!" "Miss Ashurst? She is, indeed!" said Mr. Creswell abstractedly. "Such a clever head, such individuality, such dominant will! Let her make up her mind to a thing and you may consider it done! Charming girl, too; simple, unaffected, affectionate. Dear me! I think I can see her now, in frilled trousers, bowling a hoop round the schoolhouse garden, and poor Ashurst pointing her out to me through the window! Poor Ashurst! dear me!"