"I must be polite to the people with whom I have been so unfortunately mixed up, Mary," said her father, "and I feel for the poor man, left with all those motherless children. I hear he is well off, besides inheriting his second wife's fortune; otherwise it would be a sad burden upon the poor old grandfather to have to support them upon school keeping."
"The youngest is a beautiful little boy," said Mary, quite unable to reply to her father's speech.
"Yes, I noticed a fat, rosy child, led by a lady in mourning; is she the wardrobe-keeper?"
"No papa," said Mary, and with all her efforts she could not restrain a slight tone of indignation, "that lady is Mrs. Halford's niece."
Mr. Armstrong would have questioned his daughter a week previously as to the source of her information, but a recollection of Cousin Sarah kept him silent.
On the way home they overtook Mr. Drummond, and while he and her father talked, Mary walked by his side meditating with surprise on the events of the morning—the earnest looks of Mr. Franklyn's eldest girl, the evident restraint in the manner of Kate Marston and Dr. Halford, and, above all, the absence of Henry Halford.
Suddenly a thought struck her—she knew he had taken his M. A. degree, she had seen his name in the Times—was he gone up for ordination, and where? All this was at present unknown to her, and she could only console herself with the recollection that the Times would have every particular about the ordinations whenever they took place, and Henry Halford's name was sure to be mentioned if he were among the candidates.
Mary told her mother of the encounter in the churchyard, and the absence of Henry Halford, without any comment.
Mrs. Armstrong listened with interest to her description of the children, and especially about the little boy. She thought well of this meeting to a certain extent, but she said not a hopeful word to her daughter.