And now Marian was going to be married! Years rolled away, and the old lady saw herself in the same condition, but how differently circumstanced! Her James was young and strong and handsome. How splendid he looked in his flannel boating-dress, when he came to spend a hurried holiday at her father's river-side cottage! How all the people in the church admired him on their wedding-day It was impossible that Marian could love this man, who was quite old enough to be her father,--love him, that is, in the proper way, in the way that a husband should be loved. She could look up to him, and respect and reverence him, and so on; but that was not the way in which she had loved her James. She had not the least respect for him, but used to laugh at him for his awkwardness, and great strong clumsy ways, never knowing what to do with his long legs and his great feet, and used to call him "a great goose;" she recollected that, and the recollection brought the colour to her face, and made her smile in spite of herself. Marian could never call Mr. Creswell "a great goose," could never think of him so familiarly, no matter how long they might be married. What could have brought it about? She had very good eyes, she thought, and yet she had never suspected Mr. Creswell of any partiality for Marian; any, at least, beyond that which a man in his position and of his age might be expected to feel for a bright intelligent girl with whom he was thrown into frequent contact. And as for Marian, it was the last thing she should have expected of her. If she were to think of marriage, which Mrs. Ashurst never contemplated, she would not have suffered herself to be thrown away on a man so much older than herself; she would have looked for some one whom she could love. No; it was what had first struck her, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she grew. Marian had sacrificed herself on the shrine of filial duty; she had accepted the position of Mr. Creswell's wife in order that her mother might be able to continue in the house where all possible comforts and luxuries were at her command. It was a good motive, a noble affectionate resolve, but it would never turn out well, she was sure of that. There had been a baronet once under James's tuition--what was his name? Attride, Sir Joseph Attride, a young man of rather weak intellect--who had been sent by his friends to be what James called "coached for something," and who had a very large fortune; why did not Marian take him, or Mr. Lawrence, the miller and churchwarden, who was very rich, and took so much snuff? Either of them would have been much more suited to her than Mr. Creswell. And so the old lady sat--chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, but always coming back to her proposition that Marian had sacrificed herself for her mother's sake--throughout the afternoon.