who, on such a matter, would have made a confidant of his butler.  He never spoke to a servant about matters unconnected with their service.  He considered that to do so would be altogether against his dignity.  Nevertheless when he ordered his carriage, which he did not do very frequently at this time of the year, when the horses were wanted on the farm,—­and of which he gave twenty-four hours’ notice to all the persons concerned,—­and when early in the morning he ordered that his Sunday suit should be prepared for wearing, and when his aspect grew more and more serious as the hour drew nigh, it was well understood by them all that he was going to make the offer that day.

He was both proud and fearful as to the thing to be done,—­proud that he, the Squire of Buston, should be called on to take so important a step; proud by anticipation of his feelings as he would return home a jolly thriving wooer,—­and yet a little fearful lest he might not succeed.  Were he to fail the failure would be horrible to him.  He knew that every man and woman about the place would know all about it.  Among the secrets of the family there was a story, never now mentioned, of his having done the same thing, once before.  He was then a young man, about twenty-five, and he had come forth to lay himself and Buston at the feet of a baronet’s daughter who lived some twenty-five miles off.  She was very beautiful, and was said to have a fitting dower, but he had come back, and had shut himself up in the house for a week afterward.  To no human ears had he ever since spoken of his interview with Miss Courteney.  The doings of that day had been wrapped in impenetrable darkness.  But all Buston and the neighboring parishes had known that Miss Courteney had refused him.  Since that day he had never gone forth again on such a mission.

There were those who said of him that his love had been so deep and enduring that he had never got the better of it.  Miss Courteney had been married to a much grander lover, and had been taken off to splendid circles.  But he had never mentioned her name.  That story of his abiding love was throughly believed by his sister, who used to tell it of him to his credit when at the rectory the rector would declare him to be a fool.  But the rector used to say that he was dumb from pride, or that he could not bear to have it known that he had failed at anything.  At any rate, he had never again attempted love, and had formally declared to his sister that, as he did not intend to marry, Harry should be regarded as his son.  Then at last had come the fellowship, and he had been proud of his heir, thinking that in some way he had won the fellowship himself, as he had paid the bills.  But now all was altered, and he was to go forth to his wooing again.

There had been a rumor about the country that he was already accepted; but such was not the case.  He had fluttered about Buntingford, thinking of it:  but he had never put the question.  To his thinking it would not have been becoming to do so without some ceremony.  Buston was not to be made away during the turnings of a quadrille or as a part of an ordinary conversation.  It was not probable,—­nay, it was impossible,—­that he should mention the subject to any one; but still he must visibly prepare for it, and I think that he was aware that the world around him knew what he was about.