Rigid as Miss Ponsonby was, she began to be touched. There was a
doubt as to his admission when he came on Sunday morning--'Mistress
saw no one on Sunday,' but when his name was carried in, Miss
Ponsonby could not withstand Mary's face. She took care to tell him
her rule; but that, considering the circumstances, she had made an
exception in his favour, on the understanding that nothing was to
break in upon the observance of the Sabbath.

Louis bent his head, with the heartfelt answer that he was but too
glad to be permitted to go to church once more with Mary.

Aunt Melicent's Sunday was not quite their own Sunday, but all that
they could desire was to be quietly together, and restricted from all
those agitating topics and arrangements. It was a day of rest, and
they valued it accordingly. In fact, Miss Ponsonby found the young
Lord so good and inoffensive, that she broke her morning's
resolution, invited him to partake of the cold dinner, let him go to
church with them again in the evening, and remain to tea; and when he
took leave, she expressed such surprised admiration at his having
come and gone on his own feet, his church-going, and his conduct
generally, that Mary could not help suspecting that her good aunt had
supposed that he had never heard of the Fourth Commandment.

Miss Ponsonby was one of the many good women given to hard judgments
on slight grounds, and to sudden reactions still more violent; and
the sight of Lord Fitzjocelyn spending a quiet, respectable Sunday,
had such an effect on her, that she transgressed her own mandate, and
broached 'the distressing subject.'