"It would be nothing to me, mamma."

"It might be something. But I will say nothing more about it. You've so much good sense that I am quite sure you won't get into trouble. I wish Sir Gregory had not spoken to you; but as he has, it may be as well that you should know that the family arrangement would be very agreeable to your uncle and to cousin Gregory. The title and the property must go to Captain Marrable at last, and Sir Gregory would make immediate sacrifices for you, which perhaps he would not make for him."

Edith understood all about it very clearly, and would have understood all about it with half the words. She would have little or no fortune of her own, and in money her uncle would have very little to give to her. Indeed, there was no reason why he should give her anything. She was not connected with any of the Marrables by blood, though chance had caused her to live at Dunripple almost all her life. She had become half a Marrable already, and it might be very well that she should become a Marrable altogether. Walter was a remarkably handsome man, would be a baronet, and would have an estate, and might, perhaps, have the enjoyment of the estate by marrying her earlier than he would were he to marry any one else. Edith Brownlow understood it all with sufficient clearness. But then she understood also that young women shouldn't give away their hearts before they are asked for them; and she was quite sure that Walter Marrable had made no sign of asking for hers. Nevertheless, within her own bosom she did become a little anxious about Mary Lowther, and she wished that she knew that story.

On the fourth of August Walter Marrable reached Dunripple, and found the house given up almost entirely to the doctor. Both his uncle and his cousin were very ill. When he was able to obtain from the doctor information on which he could rely, he learned that Mr. Marrable was in real danger, but that Sir Gregory's ailment was no more than his usual infirmity heightened by anxiety on behalf of his son. "Your uncle may live for the next ten years," said the doctor; "but I do not know what to say about Mr. Marrable." All this time the care and time of the two ladies were divided between the invalids. Mrs. Brownlow tended her nephew, and Edith, as usual, waited upon Sir Gregory. In such circumstances it was not extraordinary that Edith Brownlow and Walter Marrable should be thrown much together,—especially as it was the desire of all concerned with them that they should become man and wife. Poor Edith was subject to a feeling that everybody knew that she was expected to fall in love with the man. She thought it probable, too, that the man himself had been instructed to fall in love with her. This no doubt created a great difficulty for her, a difficulty which she felt to be heavy and inconvenient;—but it was lessened by the present condition of the household. When there is illness in a house, the feminine genius and spirit predominates the male. If the illness be so severe as to cause a sense of danger, this is so strongly the case that the natural position of the two is changed. Edith, quite unconscious of the reason, was much less afraid of her proposed lover than she would have been had there been no going about on tiptoe, no questions asked with bated breath, no great need for womanly aid.

Walter had been there four days, and was sitting with Edith one evening out on the lawn among the rhododendrons. When he had found what was the condition of the household, he had offered to go back at once to his regiment at Birmingham. But Sir Gregory would not hear of it. Sir Gregory hated the regiment, and had got an idea in his head that his nephew ought not to be there at all. He was too weak and diffident to do it himself; but if any one would have arranged it for him, he would have been glad to fix an income for Walter Marrable on condition that Walter should live at home, and look after the property, and be unto him as a son. But nothing had been fixed, nothing had been said, and on the day but one following, the captain was to return to Birmingham. Mrs. Brownlow was with her nephew, and Walter was sitting with Edith among the rhododendrons, the two having come out of the house together after such a dinner as is served in a house of invalids. They had become very intimate, but Edith Brownlow had almost determined that Walter Marrable did not intend to fall in love with her. She had quite determined that she would not fall in love with him till he did. What she might do in that case she had not told herself. She was not quite sure. He was very nice,—but she was not quite sure. One ought to be very fond of a young man, she said to herself, before one falls in love with him. Nevertheless her mind was by no means set against him. If one can oblige one's friends one ought, she said, again to herself.

She had brought him out a cup of coffee, and he was sitting in a garden chair with a cigar in his mouth. They were Walter and Edith to each other, just as though they were cousins. Indeed, it was necessary that they should be cousins to each other, for the rest of their lives, if no more.

She had brought him out a cup of coffee.
Click to [ENLARGE]

"Let us drop the Captain and the Miss," he had said himself; "the mischief is in it if you and I can't suppose ourselves to be related." She had assented cordially, and had called him Walter without a moment's hesitation. "Edith," he said to her now, after he had sat for a minute or two with the coffee in his hand; "did you ever hear of a certain cousin of ours, called Mary Lowther?"

"Oh, dear, yes; she lives with Aunt Sarah at Loring; only Aunt Sarah isn't my aunt, and Miss Lowther isn't my cousin."