‘Pray do not agitate yourself, my lady,’ entreated Steadman.  ’I was wrong to trouble you with my fears.  I shall not fail you, be sure.  Although I am getting old, I shall hold out to the end.’

‘The end cannot be very far off,’ said Lady Maulevrier, gloomily.

’I thought that forty years ago, my lady.  But you are right—­the end must be near now.  Yes, it must be near.  And now, my lady, your orders about the wedding.’

’It will take place to-morrow, as I told you, in this room.  You will go to the Vicar and ask him to officiate.  His two daughters will no doubt consent to be Lady Mary’s bridesmaids.  You will make the request in my name.  Perhaps the Vicar will call this afternoon and talk matters over with me.  Lady Mary and her husband will go to Cumberland for a brief honeymoon—­a week at most—­and then they will come back to Fellside.  Tell Mrs. Power to prepare the east wing for them.  She will make one of the rooms into a boudoir for Lady Mary; and let everything be as bright and pretty as good taste can make it.  She can telegraph to London for any new furniture that may be wanted to complete her arrangements.  And now send Lady Mary to me.’

Mary came, fresh from the pine-wood, where she had been walking with her lover; her lover of to-day, her husband to-morrow.  He had told her how he was to start for York directly after luncheon, and to come back by the earliest train next day, and how they two were to be married to-morrow afternoon.

‘It is more wonderful than any dream that I ever dreamt.’ exclaimed Mary.  ‘But how can it be?  I have not even a wedding gown.’

’A fig for wedding gowns!  It is Mary I am to wed, not her gown.  Were you clad like patient Grisel I should be content.  Besides you have no end of pretty gowns.  And you are to be dressed for travelling, remember; for I am going to carry you off to Lodore directly we are married, and you will have to clamber up the rocky bed of the waterfall to see the sun set behind the Borrowdale hills in your wedding gown.  It had better be one of those neat little tailor gowns which become you so well.’

‘I will wear whatever you tell me,’ answered Mary.  ’I shall always dress to please you, and not the outside world.’

’Will you, my Griselda.  Some day you shall be dressed as Grisel was—­

    “In a cloth of gold that brighte shone,
    With a coroune of many a riche stone.”

’Yes, you darling, when you are Lord Chancellor:  and till that day comes I will wear tailor gowns, linsey-wolsey, anything you like,’ cried Mary, laughing.

She ran to her grandmother’s room, ineffably content, without a thought of trousseau or finery; but then Mary Haselden was one of those few young women for whom life is not a question of fashionable raiment.

’Mary, I am going to send you off upon your honeymoon to-morrow afternoon,’ said Lady Maulevrier, smiling at the bright, happy face which was bent over her.  ’Will you come back and nurse a fretful old woman when the honeymoon is over?’