"Why--it--it cannot be Mary Dallory."
"It is Mary Dallory; come home at last. Won't you kiss me, dear Mr. North?"
He kissed her fondly. In the old days, when John North was supposed to be the most rising man, in a commercial point of view, in the county, Mr. Dallory had thought it worth while to court his friendship, and Mr. North had been asked to stand godfather to his little girl. Mary--after she lost her own parents--was wont to say she belonged to the Hall, and often would be there. Her aunt, Mrs. Leasom, who had been a Miss Dallory once, was left guardian to the children, with Ham Court as her residence until the younger son should be of age, to whom it would then lapse. But Mrs. Leasom spent a large portion of her time in London, and sometimes the children had not seen their native place, Dallory, for years together.
"When did you come home, my dear?"
"To England a week ago. To Ham Court only yesterday. Do you know that you are much changed?"
"Ay. There's nothing but change in this life, my dear. The nearer we approach the end of our days, the faster our sorrows seem to come upon us. I have had more than my share of them, and they have changed me. I see only one source of comfort left to me in the wide world."
"And that?" she asked, half kneeling at his feet.
"My dear son Richard. No one knows the son he has been to me; the sacrifices he has made. No one save God."
Miss Dallory gave no answer to this. He was lost in deep abstraction, thinking no doubt of his many troubles--for he always was thinking of them--when the person in question entered; Richard North. Miss Dallory rose and sat down on a chair decorously.
She remained only a minute or two now, and spent the time talking and laughing. Richard gave her his arm to take her back to the others. Miss Dallory apparently was in no hurry to go, for she lingered over some of the flower-beds.