Mary Grey snatched and kissed his hand, courtesied and withdrew.
When she got to her own room she threw herself into a chair and laughed softly, murmuring:
"The old Pharisee! He is more than half in love with me now. I know it, and I feel it. Yet, to save his own credit with himself, he pretends to lecture me and tries to persuade himself that he means it. But he is half in love with me. Before I have done with him he shall be wholly in love with me. And won't it be fun to have his gray head at my feet, proposing marriage to me! And that is what I mean to bring him to before a month is over his venerable skeleton!"
And, with this characteristic resolution, Mary Grey went to bed.
Chapter II.
LAURA LYTTON'S MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTOR.
There never was a closer friendship between two girls than that which bound Laura Lytton and Emma Cavendish together.
On the night of Laura's arrival, after they had retired from the drawing-room, and Electra had gone to bed and gone to sleep, Laura and Emma sat up together in Emma's room and talked until nearly daylight—talked of everything in the heavens above, the earth below, and the waters under the earth. And then, when at length they parted, Laura asked:
"May I come in here with you to dress to-morrow? And then we can finish our talk."