That Miss Woolsworthy felt no interest in the coming of the Captain I
will not pretend to say. The advent of any stranger with whom she would
be called on to associate must be matter of interest to her in that
secluded place; and she was not so absolutely unlike other young ladies
that the arrival of an unmarried young man would be the same to her as
the advent of some patriarchal pater-familias. In taking that outlook
into life of which I have spoken she had never said to herself that she
despised those things from which other girls received the excitement,
the joys, and the disappointment of their lives. She had simply given
herself to understand that very little of such things would come in her
way, and that it behoved her to live--to live happily if such might be
possible--without experiencing the need of them. She had heard, when
there was no thought of any such visit to Oxney Colne, that John
Broughton was a handsome clever man--one who thought much of himself and
was thought much of by others--that there had been some talk of his
marrying a great heiress, which marriage, however had not taken place
through unwillingness on his part, and that he was on the whole a man of
more mark in the world than the ordinary captains of ordinary regiments.

Captain Broughton came to Oxney Colne, stayed there a fortnight--the
intended period for his projected visit having been fixed at three or
four days--and then went his way. He went his way back to his London
haunts, the time of the year then being the close of the Easter
holy-days; but as he did so he told his aunt that he should assuredly
return to her in the autumn.

'And assuredly I shall be happy to see you, John--if you come with a
certain purpose. If you have no such purpose, you had better remain
away.'