And with marvellous intrepidity she looked Sarah Swetnam in the face.

“Then,” Sarah stammered, “you and Emanuel—­you don’t mean——­”

“My dear Sally, don’t you think Emanuel is a perfectly delightful boy?”

“Oh, yes!” said Sarah.

“So do I,” said Helen.

“But are you——­”

“Between ourselves,” Helen murmured.  “Mind you, between ourselves—­I could imagine stranger things happening.”

“Well,” said Sarah, “this is news.”

“Mind, not a syllable!”

“Oh, of course not.”

“By the way,” Helen asked, “when are Andrew and Lilian going to get married?”

“I don’t know.  No one knows.  One confidence for another, my dear; they don’t always hit it off.”

“What a pity!” Helen remarked.  “Because if ever two people were suited to each other in this world, they are.  But I hope they’ll shake down.”

They arrived at the rector’s.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CONCERT

On another afternoon a middle-aged man and a young-hearted woman emerged together from Bursley Railway Station.  They had a little luggage, and a cab from the Tiger met them by appointment.  Impossible to deny that the young-hearted one was wearing a flowered silk under a travelling mantle.  The man, before getting into the cab, inquired as to the cost of the cab.  The gold angel of the Town Hall rose majestically in front of him, and immediately behind him the Park, with the bowling-green at the top, climbed the Moorthorne slope.  The bowling season was of course over, but even during the season he had scarcely played.  He was a changed person.  And the greatest change of all had occurred that very morning.  Throughout a long and active career he had worn paper collars.  Paper collars had sufficed him, and they had not shocked his friends.  But now he wore a linen collar, and eleven other linen collars were in his carpet-bag.  Yet it has been said, by some individual who obviously lacked experience of human nature, that a man never changes the style of his collar after forty.

The cab drove up to Hillport, and deposited flowered silk and one bag at the residence of Mrs. Prockter.  It then ascended higher, passing into the grounds of Wilbraham Hall, and ultimately stopping at the grandiose portals thereof, which were wide open.

The occupant of the cab was surprised to see two other cabs just departing.  The next moment he was more than surprised—­he was startled.  A gentleman in evening dress stood at the welcoming doors, and on perceiving him this gentleman ran down the steps, and, with a sort of hurried grace, took his carpet-bag from him, addressing him in broken English, and indicating by incomprehensible words and comprehensible signs that he regarded him, the new arrival, as the light of his eyes and the protector of the poor and of the oppressed.  And no sooner had he got the new arrival safe into the hall than he stripped him of hat, coat, and muffler, and might have proceeded to extremes had not his attention been distracted by another vehicle.