"Why shouldn't Carstairs be true?"
"Remember he is so young. You were in orders."
"I don't know that I was at all more likely to be true on that account. A clergyman can jilt a girl just as well as another. It depends on the nature of the man."
"And you were so good."
"I never came across a better youth than Carstairs. You see what his father says about his having a will of his own. When a young man shows a purpose of that kind he generally sticks to it."
The upshot of it all was, that Mary was to be told, and that her father was to tell her.
"Yes, papa, he did come," she said. "I told mamma all about me."
"And she told me, of course. You did what was quite right, and I should not have thought it necessary to speak to you had not Lord Bracy written to me."
"Lord Bracy has written!" said Mary. It seemed to her, as it had done to her mother, that Lord Bracy must have written angrily; but though she thought so, she plucked up her spirit gallantly, telling herself that though Lord Bracy might be angry with his own son, he could have no cause to be displeased with her.
"Yes; I have a letter, which you shall read. The young man seems to have been very much in earnest."