Before they reached Baltimore a new tie had sprung up between them. True, Squire Mason had thought occasionally during the last year of marrying again. His sister Catharine had said to him before her departure:
"The best thing you can do, Randolph, is to marry soon. The girls will need someone to supervise them and see that they make proper marriages. Mrs. Keen would be admirable, as she has no children. And there are the Stormont girls; any of them would be suitable, since even Anne is not young. I wish I had taken this in hand before."
"I wish you were not going away, Catharine. My girls ought to be nearer to you than Mr. Conway's," he said ruefully.
"I will still do what I can for them. There is excellent society at Williamsburg, and I can give them pleasant visits. But I never saw a man more in need of a wife than Mr. Conway. It's a good thing clergymen wear a surplice, for I am sure he never could tell whether he was decent or not. Surely it is a plain duty."
"And you leave me in the lurch?"
"But, you see, a clergyman needs a person well fitted for the position, which, I must say, every woman is not," with an air of complacency.
"And you think anyone will do for me!"
"How foolish you are, brother! I think no such thing. You certainly have sense enough to make a wise choice."
But he had not chosen, and now he thought he should like this sweet, sorrowful, tender Patricia. How bright he could make her life!
He was so strong, so sincere and cheerful. He made friends with shy Annis, who sat on his knee and was intensely interested in his girls—he always called them little. And before they reached Baltimore he had asked Patricia to marry him, and Annis had consented to be his little girl. Mrs. Bouvier's small patrimony was to be settled on the child. But, then, she could not have imagined Mr. Mason being mercenary.