"God is good to me," said the lady, raising her meek eyes; "and I have
already found it so. I am contented."



CHAPTER IX.

THE greater part of them seemed to be charmed with his presence.
MACKENZIE: _The Man of the World_.

IT was with the greatest difficulty that Evelyn could at last be
persuaded to consent to the separation from her mother; she wept bitterly
at the thought. But Lady Vargrave, though touched, was firm, and her
firmness was of that soft, imploring character which Evelyn never could
resist. The visit was to last some months, it is true, but she would
return to the cottage; she would escape, too--and this, perhaps,
unconsciously reconciled her more than aught else--the periodical visit
of Lord Vargrave. At the end of July, when the parliamentary session at
that unreformed era usually expired, he always came to Brook-Green for a
month. His last visits had been most unwelcome to Evelyn, and this next
visit she dreaded more than she had any of the former ones. It is
strange,--the repugnance with which she regarded the suit of her
affianced!--she, whose heart was yet virgin; who had never seen any one
who, in form, manner, and powers to please, could be compared to the gay
Lord Vargrave. And yet a sense of honour, of what was due to her dead
benefactor, her more than father,--all combated that repugnance, and left
her uncertain what course to pursue, uncalculating as to the future. In
the happy elasticity of her spirits, and with a carelessness almost
approaching to levity, which, to say truth, was natural to her, she did
not often recall the solemn engagement that must soon be ratified or