"If you wish it, and mamma wishes it."

"Oh, yes! you do, don't you, mamma? How big is your little girl--as big as me?"

"Bigger, I fancy. She is nine years old."

"Then she's as big as Rupert--he's nine years old. May she fetch her doll to see Sonora?"

"Certainly--a regiment of dolls, if she wishes."

"Can't she come to-morrow?" asked Rupert, "To-morrow's May's birthday; May's seven years old to-morrow. Mayn't she come?"

"That must be as mamma says."

"Oh, fetch her," cried Lady Thetford, "it will be so nice for May and Rupert. Only I hope little May won't quarrel with her; she does quarrel with her playmates a good deal, I am sorry to say."

"I won't, if she's nice," said May; "it's all their fault. Oh, Rupert!

there's Mrs. Weymore on the lawn, and I want her to come and see the rabbits. There's five little rabbits this morning, mamma--mayn't I go and show them to Mrs. Weymore?"

Lady Thetford nodded smiling acquiescence; and away ran little May and Rupert to show the rabbits to the governess.

Colonel Jocyln lingered for half an hour or upwards, conversing with his hostess, and rose to take his leave at last, with the promise of returning on the morrow with his little daughter, and dining at the house. As he mounted his horse and rode homeward, "a haunting shape, an image gay," followed him through the genial May sunshine--Lady Thetford, fair, and stately, and graceful.

"Nine years a widow," he mused. "They say she took her husband's death very hard--and no wonder, considering how he died; but nine years is a tolerable time in which to forget. She received the news of Everard's death very quietly. I don't suppose there ever was anything really in that old story. How handsome she is, and how graceful. I wonder--"

He broke off in his musing fit to light a cigar, and see through the curling smoke dark-eyed Ada, mamma to little Aileen as well as the other two. He had never thought of wanting a wife before, in all the years of his widowhood; but the want struck him forcibly now.

"And Aileen wants a mother, and the little baronet a father," he thought, complacently; "my lady can't do better."

So next day, the earliest possible hour brought back the gallant colonel, and with him a brown-haired, brown-eyed, quiet-looking little girl, as tall, every inch, as Sir Rupert. A little embryo patrician, with pride in her infantile lineaments already, an uplifted poise of the graceful head, a light, elastic step, and a softly-modulated voice. A little lady from top to toe, who opened her brown eyes in wide wonder at the antics, and gambols, and obstreperousness, generally, of little May.

There were two or three children from the rectory, and half a dozen from other families in the neighborhood--and the little birthday feast was under the charge of Mrs. Weymore, the governess, pale and pretty, and subdued, as of old. They raced through the leafy arcades of the park and gambolled in the garden, and had tea in a fairy summer-house, to the music of plashing fountains--and little May was captain of the band.

Even shy, still Aileen Jocyln forgot her youthful dignity, and raced and laughed with the best.

"It was so nice, papa!" she cried, rapturously, riding home in the misty moonlight. "I never enjoyed myself so well. I like Rupert so much--better than May, you know; May's so rude, and laughs so loud. I've asked them to come and see me, papa; and May said she would make her mamma let them come next week. And then I'm going back--I shall always like to go there."

Colonel Jocyln smiled as he listened to his little daughter's prattle.

Perhaps he agreed with her; perhaps he too, liked to go there. The dinner-party, at which he and the rector of St. Gosport and the rector's wife were the only guests, had been quite as pleasant as the birthday fete. Very graceful, very fair and stately, had looked the lady of the manor, presiding at her own dinner-table. How well she would look at the head of his?

The Indian officer, after that became a very frequent guest at Thetford Towers--the children were such a good excuse. Aileen was lonely at home, and Rupert and May were always glad to have her. So papa drove her over nearly every day, or else came to fetch the other two to Jocyln Hall.

Lady Thetford was ever most gracious, and the colonel's hopes ran high.

Summer waned. It was October, and Lady Thetford began talking of leaving St. Gosport for a season; her health was not good, and change of air was recommended.

"I can leave my children in charge of Mrs. Weymore," she said. "I have every confidence in her; and she has been with me so long. I think I shall depart next week, Dr. Gale says I have delayed too long."

Colonel Jocyln looked up uneasily. They were sitting alone together, looking at the red October sunset blazing itself out behind the Devon hills.

"We will miss you very much," he said, softly. "I will miss you."

Something in his tone struck Lady Thetford. She turned her dark eyes upon him in surprise and sudden alarm. The look had to be answered; rather embarrassed, and not at all so confident as he thought he would have been, Colonel Jocyln asked Lady Thetford to be his wife.

There was a blank pause. Then,

"I am very sorry, Colonel Jocyln. I never thought of this."

He looked at her, pale--alarmed.

"Does that mean no, Lady Thetford?"

"It means no, Colonel Jocyln. I have never thought of you save as a friend; as a friend I still wish to retain you. I will never marry. What I am to-day, I will go to my grave. My boy has my whole heart--there is no room in it for anyone else. Let us be friends, Colonel Jocyln,"

holding out her white, jeweled hand, "more, no mortal man can ever be to me."

CHAPTER VIII.

LADY THETFORD'S BALL.

Years came, and years went, and thirteen passed away. In all these years, with their countless changes, Thetford Towers had been a deserted house. Comparatively speaking, of course; Mrs. Weymore, the governess, Mrs. Hilliard, the housekeeper, Mr. Jarvis, the butler, and their minor satellites, served there still, but its mistress and her youthful son had been absent. Only little May had remained under Mrs. Weymore's charge until within the last two years, and then she, too, had gone to Paris to a finishing school.

Lady Thetford came herself to the Towers to fetch her--the only time in these thirteen years. She had spent them pleasantly enough, rambling about the Continent, and in her villa on the Arno, for her health was frail, and growing daily frailer, and demanded a sunny, Southern climate. The little baronet had gone to Eton, thence to Oxford, passing his vacation abroad with his mamma--and St. Gosport had seen nothing of them. Lady Thetford had thought it best, for many reasons, to leave little May quietly in England during her wanderings. She missed the child, but she had every confidence in Mrs. Weymore. The old aversion had never entirely worn away, but time had taught her she could trust her implicitly; and though May might miss "mamma" and Rupert, it was not in that flighty-fairy's nature to take their absence very deeply to heart.

Jocyln Hall was vacated, too. After that refusal of Lady Thetford, Colonel Jocyln had left England, placed his daughter in a school abroad, and made a tour of the East. Lady Thetford he had not met until within the last year; then Lady Thetford and her son, spending the winter in Rome, had encountered Colonel and Miss Jocyln, and they had scarcely parted company since. The Thetfords were to return early in spring to take up their abode once more in the old home, and Colonel Jocyln announced his intention of following their example.

Lady Thetford wrote to Mrs. Weymore, her viceroy, and to her steward, issuing her orders for the expected return. Thetford Towers was to be completely rejuvenated--new furnished, painted, and decorated. Landscape gardeners were set at work in the grounds; all things were to be ready the following June.

Summer came and brought the absentees--Lady Thetford and her son, Colonel Jocyln and his daughter; and there were bonfires and illuminations, and feasting of tenantry, and ringing of bells, and general jubilation, that the heir of Thetford Towers had come to reign at last.

The week following the arrival, Lady Thetford issued invitations over half the county for a grand ball. Thetford Towers, after over twenty years of gloom and solitude, was coming out again in the old gayety and brilliance that had been its normal state before the present heir was born.

The night of the ball came, and with it nearly every one who had been honored with an invitation, all curious to see the future lord of one of the noblest domains in broad Devonshire.

Sir Rupert Thetford stood by his mother's side, and met his old friends for the first time since his boyhood--a slender young man, pale, and dark, and handsome of face, with dreamy, artist's eyes and quiet manners, not at all like his father's fair-haired, bright-eyed, stalwart Saxon race; the Thetford blood had run out, he was his own mother's son.

Lady Thetford, grown pallid and wan, and wasted in all those years, and bearing within her the seeds of an incurable disease, looked yet fair and gracious, and stately in her trailing robes and jewels, to-night, receiving her guests like a queen. It was the triumph of her life, the desire of her heart, this seeing her son, her idol, reigning in the home of his fathers, ruler of the broad domain that had owned the Thetford's lord for more years back than she could count.

"If I could but see her his wife," Lady Thetford thought, "I think I should have nothing left on earth to desire."

She glanced across the wide room, along a vista of lights, and flitting forms, and rich dresses, and sparkling jewels, to where a young lady stood, the centre of an animated group--a tall and eminently handsome girl, with a proud patrician face, and the courtly grace of a young empress--Aileen Jocyln, heiress of fabulous wealth, possessor of fabulous beauty, and descendant of a race as noble and as ancient as his own.

"With her for his wife, come what might in the future, my Rupert would be safe," the mother thought; "and who knows what a day may bring forth.

Ah! if I dared only speak, but I dare not; it would ruin all. I know my son."

Yes, Lady Thetford knew her son, understood his character thoroughly, and was a great deal too wary a conspirator to let him see her cards.

Fate, not she, had thrown the heiress and the baronet constantly together of late, and Aileen's own beauty and grace were surely sufficient for the rest. It was the one desire of Lady Thetford's heart; but she never said so to her son, who loved her dearly, and would have done a great deal to add to her happiness. She left it to fate, and leaving it, was doing the wisest thing she could possibly do.

It seemed as if her hopes were likely to be realized. Sir Rupert had an artist's and a Sybarite's love for all things beautiful, and could appreciate the grand statuesque style of Miss Jocyln's beauty, even as his mother could not appreciate it. She was like the Pallas Athene, she was his ideal woman, fair and proud, uplifted and serene, smiling on all, from the heights of high-and-mightydom, but shining upon them, a brilliant far-off star, keeping her warmth and her sweetness all for him. He was an indolent, dreamy Sybarite, this pale young baronet, who liked his rose-leaves unruffled under him, full of artistic tastes and inspirations, and a great deal too lazy ever to carry them into effect.