and its emotions.  We could now refer quite sympathetically to the altogether irretrievable and gone by, and Mr. Mafferton was able to mention Lady Torquilan without any trace of his air that she was a person, poor dear, that brought embarrassment with her.  Indeed, I sometimes thought he dragged her in.  I asked him, in appropriate phrases, of course, whether he had decided to accept Mrs. Portheris’s daughter, and he fixed mournful eyes upon me and said he thought he had, almost.  The news of my engagement to Mr. Dod had apparently done much to bring him to a conclusion; he said it pointed so definitely to the unlikelihood of his ever being able to find a more stimulating companion than Miss Portheris, with all her charms, was likely to prove.  It was difficult, of course, to see the connection, but I could not help confiding to Mr. Mafferton, as a secret, that there was hardly any chance of my union with Dicky—­after what poppa had said.  When I assured him that I had no intention whatever of disobeying my parent in a matter of which he was so much better qualified to be a judge than I, it was impossible not to see Mr. Mafferton’s good opinion of me rising in his face.  He said he could not help sympathising with the paternal view, but that was all he would say; he refrained magnificently from abusing Dicky.  And we parted mutually more deeply convinced than ever of the undesirability of doing anything rash in the all important direction we had been discussing.

As we disembarked at Colico to take the train for Chiavenna, Mrs. Portheris, after seeing that Mr. Mafferton was collecting the portmanteaux, gave me a word of comfort and of admonition.  “Take my advice, my child,” she said, “and be faithful to poor dear Richard.  Your father must, in the end, give way.  I shall keep at him in your interests.  When you left us this afternoon,” continued the lady mysteriously, “he immediately took out his fountain pen and wrote a letter.  It was directed—­I saw that much—­to a Mr. Arthur Page.  Is he the creature who is to be forced upon you, my child?” Mrs. Portheris in the sentimental view was really affecting.

“I think it very likely,” I said calmly, “but I have promised to be faithful to Richard, Mrs. Portheris, and I will.”

But I really felt a little nervous.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The instant we saw the diligence momma declared that if she had to sit anywhere but in the middle of it she would remain in Chiavenna until next day.  Mrs. Portheris was of the same mind.  She said that even the interieur would be dangerous enough going down hill, but if the Senator would sit there too she would try not to be nervous.  The coupe was terrifying—­one saw everything the poor dear horses did—­and as to the banquette she could imagine herself flying out of it, if we so much as went over a stone.  As a party we were strangers to the diligence; we had