Mr. and Mrs. Darrell rode or drove together. My darling could see
that she was not expected to join them in these rides and drives,
and I think this confirmed her idea that her father was in a manner
lost to her.

'I must try to be satisfied with this new state of things, Mary,'
she said, with a sigh of resignation. 'If my father is happy, I
ought to be contented. But O, my dear, if you could have seen us
together a year ago, you would know how much I have lost.'

I had been at Thornleigh a little more than a week, when Mr. Darrell
one morning proposed a drive to a place called Cumber Priory, which
was one of the show-houses of the neighbourhood. It was a very old
place, he said, and had been one of the earliest monastic
settlements in that part of the country. Milly and her father and
her cousin had been there a great many times, and the visit was
proposed for the gratification of Mrs. Darrell and myself.

She assented graciously, as she always did to every proposition of
her husband's, and we started soon after breakfast in the barouche,
with Julian Stormont on horseback. The drive was delightful; for,
after leaving the hilly district about Thornleigh, our road lay
through a wood, where the trees were of many hundred years' growth.
I recognised groups of oak and beech that I had seen among the
sketches in Milly's portfolio.

On the other side of the wood we came to some dilapidated-looking
gates, with massive stone escutcheons on the great square pillars.
There was a lodge, but it was evidently unoccupied, and Mr.
Darrell's footman got down from the box to open the gates. Within we