On that same Thursday, the Thursday on which Mary Lowther wrote her two despatches to Bullhampton, Miss Marrable sent a note down to Parson John, requesting that she might have an interview with him. If he were at home and disengaged, she would go down to him that evening, or he might, if he pleased, come to her. The former she thought would be preferable. Parson John assented, and very soon after dinner the private brougham came round from the Dragon, and conveyed Miss Marrable down to the rectory at Lowtown.

“I am going down to Parson John,” said she to Mary. “I think it best to speak to him about the engagement.”

Mary received the information with a nod of her head that was intended to be gracious, and Aunt Sarah proceeded on her way. She found her cousin alone in his study, and immediately opened the subject which had brought her down the hill. “Walter, I believe, has told you about this engagement, Mr. Marrable.”

“Never was so astonished in my life! He told me last night. I had begun to think that he was getting very fond of her, but I didn’t suppose it would come to this.”

“Don’t you think it very imprudent?”

“Of course it’s imprudent, Sarah. It don’t require any thinking to be aware of that. It’s downright stupid;—two cousins with nothing a year between them, when no doubt each of them might do very well. They’re well-born, and well-looking, and clever, and all that. It’s absurd, and I don’t suppose it will ever come to anything.”

“Did you tell Walter what you thought?”

“Why should I tell him? He knows what I think without my telling him; and he wouldn’t care a pinch of snuff for my opinion. I tell you because you ask me.”

“But ought not something to be done to prevent it?”

“What can we do? I might tell him that I wouldn’t have him here any more, but I shouldn’t like to do that. Perhaps she’ll do your bidding.”

“I fear not, Mr. Marrable.”

“Then you may be quite sure he won’t do mine. He’ll go away and forget her. That’ll be the end of it. It’ll be as good as a year gone out of her life, and she’ll lose this other lover of hers at—what’s the name of the place? It’s a pity, but that’s what she’ll have to go through.”

“Is he so light as that?” asked Aunt Sarah, shocked.

“He’s about the same as other men, I take it; and she’ll be the same as other girls. They like to have their bit of fun now, and there’d be no great harm,—only such fun costs the lady so plaguy dear. As for their being married, I don’t think Walter will ever be such a fool as that.”

There was something in this that was quite terrible to Aunt Sarah. Her Mary Lowther was to be treated in this way;—to be played with as a plaything, and then to be turned off when the time for playing came to an end! And this little game was to be played for Walter Marrable’s delectation, though the result of it would be the ruin of Mary’s prospects in life!

“I think,” said she, “that if I believed him to be so base as that, I would send him out of the house.”

“He does not mean to be base at all. He’s just like the rest of ’em,” said Parson John.

Aunt Sarah used every argument in her power to show that something should be done; but all to no purpose. She thought that if Sir Gregory were brought to interfere, that perhaps might have an effect; but the old clergyman laughed at this. What did Captain Walter Marrable, who had been in the army all his life, and who had no special favour to expect from his uncle, care about Sir Gregory? Head of the family, indeed! What was the head of the family to him? If a girl would be a fool, the girl must take the result of her folly. That was Parson John’s doctrine,—that and a confirmed assurance that this engagement, such as it was, would lead to nothing. He was really very sorry for Mary, in whose praise he said ever so many good-natured things; but she had not been the first fool, and she would not be the last. It was not his business, and he could do no good by interfering. At last, however, he did promise that he would himself speak to Walter. Nothing would come of it, but, as his cousin asked him, he would speak to his nephew.

He waited for four-and-twenty hours before he spoke, and during that time was subject to none of those terrors which were now making Miss Marrable’s life a burden to her. In his opinion it was almost a pity that a young fellow like Walter should be interrupted in his amusement. According to his view of life, very much wisdom was not expected from ladies, young or old. They, for the most part, had their bread found for them; and were not required to do anything, whether they were rich or poor. Let them be ever so poor, the disgrace of poverty did not fall upon them as it did upon men. But then, if they would run their heads into trouble, trouble came harder upon them than on men; and for that they had nobody to blame but themselves. Of course it was a very nice thing to be in love. Verses and pretty speeches and easy-spoken romance were pleasant enough in their way. Parson John had no doubt tried them himself in early life, and had found how far they were efficacious for his own happiness. But young women were so apt to want too much of the excitement! A young man at Bullhampton was not enough without another young man at Loring. That, we fear, was the mode in which Parson John looked at the subject,—which mode of looking at it, had he ever ventured to explain it to Mary Lowther, would have brought down upon his head from that young woman an amount of indignant scorn which would have been very disagreeable to Parson John. But then he was a great deal too wise to open his mind on such a su............