"Because I had to come to-day, Ethel. I wish to see my uncle."
"I suppose you have been busy with your money and your executorship," spoke Mrs. Castlemaine. "You must feel quite rich."
"I do," said Mary, with earnest truth. Looking back, she had not thought herself so rich in her anticipated many, many thousands a year then, as she felt now with these two or three bequeathed hundreds of additional income. "We are rich or poor by comparison, you know," she said, smiling. "And what is Marie doing?--learning to play at cat's cradle?"
Marie snatched the thread from Flora, and ran up to her: she could speak a little English now.
"Lady play wi' Marie!
"Why, my dear little child, I think I have forgotten how to play," returned Mary. "Flora can play better than I can. Flora is none the worse for that accident, I hope?" she added to Mrs. Castlemaine. "But how serious it might have been!"
"Oh, don't, don't talk of it," cried Mrs. Castlemaine, putting her hands before her eyes to shut out the mental vision. "I shall never see a furious sea again without shuddering."
"It is beautifully calm to-day," said Mary, rising to go into the dining-room to her uncle. "Like a mill-pond."
Mr. Castlemaine was no longer in the dining-room. Miles putting the wine and dessert away, said his master had gone up to his room to write letters. So Mary went after him.
Several days had passed now since the departure of Jane Hallet from the Nunnery. And the longer the time elapsed without news of her, the greater grew the marvel of Greylands. The neighbours asked one another whether Jane had mysteriously disappeared for good, after the fashion of Anthony Castlemaine. It was rumoured that the affair altogether, connected with Jane, had much annoyed the Master of Greylands. He was supposed to have talked sharply to his son on the subject; but how Harry received it, or what he replied, was not known. Harry rather shunned home just then, and made pretext for excursions to distant places, which kept him out for a day or two at a time.