girl awaiting his forgiveness, for she supposed herself, no less
than her mother, to be under his displeasure.

Yes, Betty had left school, and had returned to King's-Hintock. She
was nearly seventeen, and had developed to quite a young woman. She
looked not less a member of the household for her early marriage-
contract, which she seemed, indeed, to have almost forgotten. It
was like a dream to her; that clear cold March day, the London
church, with its gorgeous pews, and green-baize linings, and the
great organ in the west gallery--so different from their own little
church in the shrubbery of King's-Hintock Court--the man of thirty,
to whose face she had looked up with so much awe, and with a sense
that he was rather ugly and formidable; the man whom, though they
corresponded politely, she had never seen since; one to whose
existence she was now so indifferent that if informed of his death,
and that she would never see him more, she would merely have
replied, 'Indeed!' Betty's passions as yet still slept.

'Hast heard from thy husband lately?' said Squire Dornell, when they
were indoors, with an ironical laugh of fondness which demanded no
answer.

The girl winced, and he noticed that his wife looked appealingly at
him. As the conversation went on, and there were signs that Dornell
would express sentiments that might do harm to a position which they
could not alter, Mrs. Dornell suggested that Betty should leave the
room till her father and herself had finished their private
conversation; and this Betty obediently did.

Dornell renewed his animadversions freely. 'Did you see how the