“Oh, Arthur,” she said to herself, “what good fortune your love seems to have brought us already! And should you become poor for my sake, what happiness if it should ever be in my power to restore to you any of what you may have sacrificed! My sisters and I would have daughters’ portions, Mrs Brabazon said; and mine could not, at the worst, but be enough for us to live on. How strange that the Brookes should know him!”
For in the course of conversation that day, it had been mentioned, à propos of the Cheviotts’ meeting with Mrs Brabazon in Paris, that Arthur Beverley and Basil Brooke had been brother officers and great friends.
Chapter Twenty Six.
Sir Ingram de Romary.
“Raged the loud storm...
The lightning o’er his path
Flashed horribly—the thunder pealed—the winds
Mournfully blew; yet still his desperate course
He held; and fierce he urged his gallant steed
For many a mile. The torrent lifted high its voice.”
Lydford Bridge.
Hathercourt letters sometimes came of an evening. When any thoughtful or good-natured neighbour happened to pass the Withenden post-office at or after three o’clock in the afternoon, it was a favourite attention to call for the Rectory letters. And sometimes it happened that the owners of the letters were not sorry to receive them in private, for even among the least reserved or secretive natures it is not always pleasant to have one’s affairs discussed or guessed at by half a dozen inquisitive young people round a breakfast table.
Lilias had not written quite as much to Mary as usual of late, finding it difficult to make time for more than the almost daily lengthy and amusing letters she sent to her father. So when Mr Wills from the Edge, who, since her residence under his roof, had taken “Miss Mary” into special favour, called with a thick budget addressed in Lilias’s hand, Mary felt surprised as well as delighted.
But her pleasure was somewhat tinged with alarm when she read the few words which, at the top of the sheet, first met her glance: