I could not tell. I had neither money nor friends. Except the Miss Barlieus.
"Where are you going, Anne? Don't you hear me?" she cried, with some impatience. "Even if mamma remained at Chandos, you could not, under the same roof with Harry. It would be out of all precedent, you know. The world would talk."
"Wouldn't it?" put in Sir Harry. But I thought he was laughing at her.
"Where are you to be married? I mean, from whose house?" she asked, looking straight at me.
"From—Miss Barlieu's," I suggested, humbly, feeling now very humble my share of everything was altogether.
Emily gave a scream. "From Miss Barlieu's! Sir Harry Chandos take his wife from them? Well, you have notions of things, Anne Hereford. You ought to be married from Keppe-Carew."
"There is no one at Keppe-Carew now. Arthur Carew is a boy at school."
"Oh well, I wash my hands of it," said Emily; "I suppose mamma will have to arrange it all. Look here, Anne; I mean to be a frequent visitor at Chandos, so I give you fair warning."
It was on my lips to say she would be always welcome, when Sir Harry spoke: telling her she might probably find that mamma had arranged it; all that was necessary to be arranged. She flew upstairs to ask, and Sir Harry turned to me.
Oh, what wonderful news he had to tell! That old saying I spoke of but a few pages back was nothing to it. I sat and listened as one in a vast maze—and when Sir Harry showed me the letter, I read it twice over, as he had done, before knowing whether or not to believe it.