"Indeed I shall," was the reply.
"Perhaps you will be as well pleased with this apartment as with the beauties of the gardens and orchards," she added, with a smile.
"I fear I have monopolised Miss Armstrong's attention too much on another subject," he replied, smiling also, "but as I am about to accept your kind invitation to remain till to-morrow, I shall hope to become better acquainted with this pleasant spot before I leave."
When Mary seated herself at the tea-table, cousin Sarah required no words to tell her what her father's message had been. It was not so much the brilliant colour in the young girl's cheeks, or the brightness of her eyes which attracted notice, as the expression of calm happiness which had replaced a sad, and at times a constrained look in her face, showing to those interested in her how firm a control she had exerted over herself.
All this had disappeared, and yet the memory of the past increased Mary's happiness. She had submitted to her father's wishes, and subdued her own will to his. Neither by word or thought had she disobeyed him, except in refusing to marry those whom she could neither respect nor love. And now unasked he had given his consent from, as she fully believed, his own unbiassed opinion of Henry Halford's real character and real worth.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE NEW RECTOR OF BRIARSLEIGH.
The summer of the year which had brought such happiness to Mary Armstrong was fading into autumn. At the door of the parish church at Kilburn appeared a goodly array of carriages, the coachmen wearing white favours indicating a wedding, and attracting a crowd of lookers-on.
A stranger passed, and observing the police endeavouring to force a passage though the crowd for the bride and bridegroom, whose carriage stood at the gates, also remained as a spectator, and inquired of those around him the name of the bridegroom.