my respect, but your visits to Meadowlands
must cease for the present."

Mrs. Clay added, furiously:

"For ever, sir! do not let your shadow
darken our doors again while I live."

Emily said she sat as still as a statue herself,
but Hugh Cameron looked savage, and
she feared he would break out into some
unpardonable retort, for which, in point of
family and origin, there is scope enough in
the Clay's annals.  But he controlled himself,
and shook hands with Emily before her
mother's face, and each made some kind of
promise, there and then, which Emily regards
as an engagement.

When Herbert came in from the office at
noon, he had to be told all about it, and he
was angry that Emily should be made
miserable as she is for any paltry considerations,
such as his mother cites.  He would have
liked her to marry Hugh Cameron, who, if
he be poor, is a fine-spirited gentleman, and
a very clever man, who will rise in his
profession before he is many years older.
Herbert thinks that even in a worldly point of
view, if no other, the rejection is short-sighted
and wrong in the extreme.  He told his
mother so, and she began to cry hysterically,
and invoke maledictions on her children, in a
spasmodic way that would have been
ridiculous if one had not known the sad cause.
Mr. Clay was vexed with Herbert for
contradicting his mother, and altogether it was
a miserable time.  Emily has gone to lie
down now, literally worried to exhaustion by
her mother's tongue and her own griefs;
and Mademoiselle, in a spirit which I feel
inclined to laud, has given herself up to the
task of boring Mrs. Clay, and keeping her
quiet in the dressing-room while Emily has a
little rest.  There will be revolution in
Meadowlands ere long.  The small end of the
wedge of liberty has been inserted by
Herbert; and to-day, my impression is, that he
will push it further and further in until the
prison-doors of his mother's will are broken
wide open—the sooner the better, both for
his happiness and Emily's.

June twenty-sixth.—I am going away from
Meadowlands immediately.  Last night
Herbert and I went up Redbank together.
Mademoiselle stayed to guard Emily from
her mother, and when we returned we found
that an awful storm had been brewing for us
while we were gone.

But first I must write what happened on
Redbank.  I have known since last Midsummer
that Herbert Clay liked me better than
any one; but to-night he told me he must
have me for his wife, or nobody.  I am quite
sure I love him enough to marry him, because
I love him enough to die for him, or, perhaps,
what is in the long-run much more difficult,
to bear a great many lively annoyances for
his sake from his mother.  It made me very
proud and happy to hear him say he loved me,
because he is good and true-hearted: he has
no mean suspicions and no worldly vanities.
One thing he said amused me, while it
gladdened me with the certainty that I was loved
for myself alone.

This was it.  " I know you have no money,
Eleanor, and my mother will make the same
objections as she did to Hugh Cameron; but
never mind, I shall be one-and-twenty and
my own master in September."

I smiled to myself, and thought I would
keep my secret, and not tell him about
Ferndell.  He talked of our living in that pretty
little cottage by Brookend, where there are
ivy, and roses, and earwigs in such plenty,
and I let him have his fancy, thinking how I
would surprise him when the time came.
But the fact is, I should be far happier, as
Herbert Clay's wife, in that tiny cot, than as
anybody else's at Ferndell.

We had a delicious hour straying over the
Redbank and in the wood, but at last it
began to grow dusk, and we said we really
must go back.  We made the walk as long
as we could, but Meadowlands was reached
at length, and there, on the door-step, stood
waiting for us, armed with all her terrors,
Mrs. Clay herself. I am not like Emily; I
don't weep and faint, or else it is impossible
to say what might have been the
consequences of her opening address.  She is a
coarse, vulgar-minded woman, or she could
not have spoken to any girl as she did to me.
"Go in, you forward puss! " was her
exclamation, the moment she saw me;  "and
to-morrow you shall be sent home!  I will
not have you contriving mischief in my peaceful
dwelling, making my daughter rebel, and
inveigling my silly son, as I see you are doing!"

Herbert cried out passionately, " Mother!"
And she added, in a frightened tone, " Have
you been imitating that fool, Emily's
example, and seeking a partner without a
shilling? " and then she ran screaming into
the drawing-room, flung herself on the couch,
and behaved like an insane person.

Herbert told me to go away to my own
room quietly, he could manage her the best
alone, and so I left them.  This morning I
have seen him again.  His father objects to
his marrying at all now; and I tell him I
will never enter any family except with the
consent of its members.

I feel strangely confused—happy and sorry,
glad and sad.

The carriage is to take me to Stockbridge
directly after luncheon; and I shall get to
Burnbank by tea-time.  Grannie will be
surprised to see me, but more surprised when I
tell her what has brought my visit to
Meadowlands to such a summary conclusion.
I don't feel to care much for Mrs. Clay's
rudeness; if she had known of Ferndell she
would have been almost down on her knees
to me, for she worships money; but I wish
Herbert's mother was a woman I could love.
Emily is ill this morning, from the fatigue of
yesterday, but she will soon rally; she says