'Pray, Miss Palliser, who is the person whom it is your daily habit to
meet and converse with in my grounds? Who is the man who has dared to
trespass on my meadow at your invitation?'

'Not at my invitation,' answered Ida, as calm as marble 'The gentleman
came of his own accord. His name is Brian Wendover, and he and I are
engaged to be married.'

Miss Pew laughed a loud ironical laugh, a laugh which froze the blood of
all the seventeen-year-old pupils who were not without fear or reproach
upon the subject of clandestine glances, little notes, or girlish
carryings-on in the flirtation line.

'Engaged?' she exclaimed, in her stentorian voice, 'That is really too
good a joke. Engaged? Pray, which Mr. Brian Wendover is it?

'Mr. Wendover of the Abbey.'

'Mr. Wendover of the Abbey, the head of the Wendover family?' cried Miss
Pew. 'And you would wish us to believe that Mr. Wendover, of Wendover
Abbey--a gentleman with an estate worth something like seven thousand
a year, young ladies--has engaged himself to the youngest of my
pupil-teachers, whose acquaintance he has cultivated while trespassing on
my meadow? Miss Palliser, when a gentleman of Mr. Wendover's means and
social status wishes to marry a young person in your position--a
concatenation which occurs very rarely in the history of the human
race--he comes to the hall door. Mr. Wendover no more means to marry you
than he means to marry the moon. His views are of quite a different kind,
and you know it.'