and joys intense! What had it all meant? If anything, it had meant
devotion to her--to his cousin, who, widowed, all but penniless, had
been flung by the adverse winds of Fate into his home.

She was the only daughter of Lady Rylton's only brother, and the
latter had taken her in, and in a measure adopted her. It was a
strange step for her to take--for one so little led by kindly
impulses, or rather for one who had so few kindly impulses to be led
by; but everyone has a soft spot somewhere in his heart, and Lady
Rylton had loved her brother, good-for-nothing as he was. There
might have been a touch of remorse, too, in her charity; she had
made Marian's marriage!

Grudgingly, coldly, she opened her son's doors to her niece, but
still she opened them. She was quite at liberty to do this, as
Maurice was seldom at home, and gave her always _carte blanche_ to
do as she would with all that belonged to him. She made Marian
Bethune's life for the first few months a burden to her, and then
Marian Bethune, who had waited, took the reins in a measure; at all
events, she made herself so useful to Lady Rylton that the latter
could hardly get on without her.

Maurice had fallen in love with her almost at once; insensibly but
thoroughly. There had been an hour in which he had flung himself,
metaphorically, at her feet (one never does the real thing now,
because it spoils one's trousers so), and offered his heart, and all
the fortune still left to him after his mother's reign; and Marian
had refused it all, very tenderly, very sympathetically, very
regretfully--to tell the truth--but she _had_ refused it.