“MY dear child,” said Miss Sheckleton next day, “is not this a very wild freak, considering you have shut yourself up so closely, and not without reason? Suppose among the visitors at Cardyllian there should happen to be one who has seen and known you, how would it be if he or she should meet and recognise you?”

“Rely on me, dear old cousin; no one shall know me.”

The young lady, in a heavy, gray, Highland shawl, was standing before the looking-glass in her room as she spoke.

“Girls look all alike in these great shawls, and I shall wear my thick lace veil, through which I defy anyone to see a feature of my face; and even my feet, in these strong, laced boots, are disguised. Now — see! I should not know myself in the glass among twenty others. I might meet you a dozen times in Cardyllian and you should not recognise me. Look and say.”

“H-m — well! I must allow it would not be easy to see through all this,” said Miss Sheckleton; “but don’t forget and lift your veil, when you come into the town — the most unlikely people are there sometimes. Who do you think I had a bow from the other day, but old Doctor Bell, who lives in York; and the same evening in Castle Street whom should I see but my Oxford Street dressmaker! It does not matter, you know, where a solitary old maid like me is seen; but it would be quite different in your case, and who knows what danger to your papa might result from it?”

“I shan’t forget — I really shan’t,” said the girl.

“Well, dear, I’ve said all I could to dissuade you; but if you will come, I suppose you must,” said Miss Anne.

“It’s just as you say — a fancy,” answered Margaret; “but I feel that if I were disappointed I should die.”

I think, and Miss Sheckleton thought so too, that this pretty girl was very much excited that day, and could not endure the terrible stillness of Malory. Uncertainty, suspense, enforced absence from the person who loved her best in the world, and who yet is very near; dangers and hopes, quite new — no wonder if all these incidents of her situation did excite her.

It was near a week since the elder lady had appeared in the streets and shops of Cardyllian. Between the banks of the old sylvan road she and her mysterious companion walked in silence into steep Church Street, and down that quaint quarter of the town presenting houses of all dates from three centuries ago, and by the church, still older, down into Castle Street, in which, as we know, stands the shop of Jones, the draper. Empty of customers was this well-garnished shop when the two ladies of Malory entered it; and Mrs. Jones raised her broad, bland, spectacled face, with a smile and a word of greeting to Miss Anne Sheckleton, and an invitation to both ladies to “be seated,” and her usual inquiry, as she leaned over the counter, “And what will you be pleased to want?” and the order, “John, get down the gray linseys — not them— those over yonder — yes, sure, you’d like to see the best — I know you would.”

So some little time was spent over the linseys, and then —

“You’re to measure thirteen yards, John, for Miss Anne Sheckleton, and send it over, with trimmin’s and linin’s, to Miss Pritchard. Miss Anne Sheckleton will speak to Miss Pritchard about the trimmin’s herself.”

Then Mrs. Jones observed —

“What a day this has been — hasn’t it, miss? And such weather, altogether, I really don’t remember in Cardyllian, I think ever.”

“Yes, charming weather,” acquiesced Miss Sheckleton; and just then two ladies came in and bought some velvet ribbon, which caused an interruption.

“What a pretty girl,” said Miss Anne, so soon as the ladies had withdrawn. “Is that her mother?”

“Oh, no — dear, no, miss; they are sisters,” half laughed Mrs. Jones. “Don’t you know who they are? No! Well, they are the Miss Etherages. There, they’re going down to the green. She’ll meet him there. She’s going to make a very great match, ma’am-yes, indeed.”

“Oh! But whom is she going to meet?” asked Miss Anne, who liked the good lady’s gossip.

“Oh! you don’t know! Well, dear me! I thought every one knew that. Why, Mr. Cleve, of course — young Mr. Verney. He meets her every afternoon on the green here, and walks home with the young ladies. It has been a very old liking — you understand — between them, and lately he has grown very pressing, and they do say — them that should know — that the Admiral — we call him — Mr. Vane Etherage — her father, has spoke to him. She has a good fortune, you know — yes, indeed — the two Miss Etherages has — we count them quite heiresses here in Cardyllian, and a very good old family too. Everybody here is pleased it is to be, and they do say Mr. Kiffyn — that is, the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney — will be very glad, too, he should settle at last, and has wrote to the young lady’s father, to say how well pleased he is; for Mr. Cleve has been”— here she dropped her voice to a confidential murmur, approaching her spectacles to the very edge of her customer’s bonnet, as she rested her fat arms upon the counter —“wild. Oh, dear! they do tell such stories of him! A pity, Miss Sheckleton —isn’t it? — there should be so many stories to his prejudice. But, dear me! he has been wild, miss; and now, you see, on that account it is Mr. Kiffyn — the Honorable Kiffyn Fulke Verney — is so well pleased he should settle and take a wife that will be so liked by the people at Ware as well as at this side.”

Miss Anne Sheckleton had been listening with an uneasiness, which the draper’s wife fancied she saw, yet doubted her own observation; for she could not understand why her old spinster customer should care a farthing about the ma............