just at present,' answered Hammond cheerily. 'Indeed, I feel that the
present is full of sweetness, and the future full of hope. Don't
suppose, dear, that I am not grieved at this good-bye; but before we
are a year older I hope the time will have come when there will be no
more farewells for you and me. I shall be a very exacting husband,
Molly. I shall want to spend all the days and hours of my life with you;
to have not a fancy or a pursuit in which you cannot share, or with
which you cannot sympathise. I hope you will not grow tired of me!'

'Tired!'

Then came silence, and a long farewell kiss, and then the voice of
Maulevrier shouting in the hall, just in time to warn the lovers, before
Miss Müller opened the door and exclaimed,

'Oh, Mr. Hammond, we have been looking for you _everywhere_. The luggage
is all in the carriage, and Maulevrier says there is only just time to
get to Windermere!'

In another minute or so the carriage was driving down the hill; and Mary
stood in the porch looking after the travellers.

'It seems as if it is my fate to stand here and see everybody drive
away,' she said to herself.

And then she looked round at the lovely gardens, bright with spring
flowers, the trees glorious with their young, fresh foliage, and the
vast panorama of hill and dale, and felt that it was a wicked thing to
murmur in the midst of such a world. And she remembered the great
unhoped-for bliss that had come to her within the last four days, and