“No, my dear.”
Jennie stared.
“I also have something to tell you which I have reserved until now,” said the minister gravely.
“What is it, papa? Oh, what is it?” demanded the young girl in sudden alarm. “You said my dear mother was quite well. If she were in heaven, you might say with truth she was quite well; but oh! how could I bear it! Oh, how could I bear it! Is she quite well in this world?”
“Quite well, here on earth, my dear. Compose yourself.”
“Then what is it?”
“Nothing to alarm you, Jennie.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Haymore, in the North Biding of Yorkshire, where I have a curacy.”
“To Hay—— And you never told me!” said Jennie, aghast with astonishment. All her life, until her hasty marriage, two years before, she had lived with her parents at Medge. She considered them as fixtures to that spot. She would as soon have expected the old parish church and graveyard to be plucked up by the roots from Medge and transplanted to Haymore as to have her father and mother removed from the first to the last named place. “‘Haymore!’” she said to herself—“‘Haymore!’ Surely that was the name of the manor to which Kightly Montgomery had fallen heir. And in Yorkshire, too. It must be the same place! She and her father were going there! And—Kightly Montgomery, under his new name, and with his new bride, was also going there. The first as the lord of the manor, the second as pastor of the parish. What was to be done? They must surely meet, and then?” Jennie was dumfounded from consternation.