And her blushes came and went so fast, she was so nervous and yet so beamingly happy, that Miss Hilary soon suspected there was more in this visit than at first appeared.  Knowing that with Elizabeth’s great shyness the mystery would never come out in public, she took an opportunity of asking her to help her in the bedroom, and there, with the folding-doors safely shut, discovered the whole secret.  Miss Hilary was a good deal surprised at first.  She had never thought of Elizabeth as likely to get married at all—­and to Tom Cliffe.

“Why, isn’t he a mere boy; ever so much younger than you are?”

“Three years.”

“That is a pity—­a great pity:  women grow old so much faster than men.”

“I know that,” said Elizabeth, somewhat sorrowfully.

“Besides, did you not tell me he was very handsome and clever?”

“Yes:  and I’m neither the one nor the other.  I have thought all that over too, many a time; indeed I have, Miss Hilary.  But Tom likes me—­or fancies he does.  Do you think”—­and the intense humility which true love always has, struck into Miss Hilary’s own conscious heart a conviction of how very true this poor girl’s love must be.  “Do you think he is mistaken? that his liking me—­I mean in that sort of way—­is quite impossible?”

“No, indeed, and I never said it; never thought it,” was the earnest reply.  “But consider; three years younger than yourself; handsomer and cleverer than you are—­“.

Miss Hilary stopped; it seemed so cruel to say such things, and yet she felt bound to say them.  She knew her former “bower-maiden” well enough to be convinced that if Elizabeth were not happy in marriage she would be worse than unhappy—­might grow actually bad.

“He loves you now; you are sure of that; but are you sure that he is a thoroughly stable and reliable character?  Do you believe he will love you always?”

“I can’t tell.  Perhaps—­if I deserved it,” said poor Elizabeth.

And, looking at the downcast eyes, at the thorough womanly sweetness and tenderness which suffused the whole face, Hilary’s doubts began to melt away.  She thought how sometimes men, captivated by inward rather than outward graces, have fallen in love with plain women, or women older than themselves, and actually kept to their attachment through life, with a fidelity rare as beautiful.  Perhaps this young fellow, who seemed by all accounts superior to his class—­having had the sense to choose that pearl in an oyster-shell, Elizabeth Hand—­might also have the sense so appreciate her, and go on loving her to the end of his days, Anyhow, he loved her now, and she loved him; and it was useless reasoning any more about it.

“Come, Elizabeth,” cried her mistress, cheerfully, “I have said all my say, and now I have only to give my good wishes.  If Tom Cliffe deserves you, I am sure you deserve him, and I should like to tell him so.”

“Should you, Miss Hilary?” and with a visible brightening up Elizabeth betrayed Tom’s whereabouts, and her little conspiracy to bring him here, and her hesitation lest it might be “intruding.”