She went up to Mr. Connaught and took his hand; she looked admiringly at him, as if a yellow flannel gown and cotton nightcap were the most charming articles of attire that fashion could produce; she expressed her sorrow for his ailments with a gentle voice. Certainly she did her best to win his heart and his wife's, and went three-parts of the way towards doing it.
Meanwhile things were in a commotion at the Red Court Farm. On the departure of Miss Derode at Christmas the justice had put his daughter to school, an eligible place eight miles only away. She had gone rebelliously; stayed rebelliously; and now finished up by running home again.
As the justice found when he got home. Mary Anne flatly refused to go back. She refused altogether to leave home.
Mr. Thornycroft, privately not knowing in the least what to do with his self-willed daughter, sat in his magisterial chair, the young lady carpeted before him. All he could say, and he said a great deal, did not move her in the least; back to school she would not go. It seemed that she had resumed at once old habits; had fed her birds, sang her songs to the grand piano, danced gleefully in and out amid the servants, and finally put on a most charming silk dress of delicate colour, that she would never have been permitted to wear at school, and was too good to have been taken there.
"I shall drive you back in an hour, Mary Anne."
"I will not go, papa."
"What's that, girl? Do you mean to tell me to my face you will not go when I say you shall? That's something new."
"Of course if you make me get into the carriage and drive me there yourself, I cannot help it; but I should ran away again tomorrow."
"It is enough disgrace to you to have run away once."
Mary Anne stood, half in contrition, half in defiance. Nearly seventeen now, tall and fair, very handsome, she scarcely looked one to be coerced to this step. Her clear blue eyes met those of her father; the very self-same eyes as his, the self-same will in them.