So she put on her straw bonnet and walked up with Beatrice. Everybody about the place had already heard the news. The old woman at the lodge curtsied low to her; the gardener, who was mowing the lawn. The butler, who opened the front door—he must have been watching Mary's approach—had manifestly put on a clean white neckcloth for the occasion.
'God bless you once more, Miss Thorne!' said the old man, in a half-whisper. Mary was somewhat troubled, for everything seemed, in a manner, to bow down before her. And why should not everything bow down before her, seeing that she was in very truth the owner of Greshamsbury?
And then a servant in livery would open the big drawing-room door. This rather upset both Mary and Beatrice. It became almost impossible for Mary to enter the room just as she would have done two years ago; but she got through the difficulty with much self-control.
'Mamma, here's Mary,' said Beatrice.
Nor was Lady Arabella quite mistress of herself, although she had studied minutely how to bear herself.
'Oh Mary, my dear Mary; what can I say to you?' and then, with a handkerchief to her eyes, she ran forward and hid her face on Miss Thorne's shoulders. 'What can I say—can you forgive me my anxiety for my son?'
'How do you do, Lady Arabella?' said Mary.
'My daughter! my child! my Frank's own bride! Oh, Mary! oh, my child! If I have seemed unkind to you, it has been through love to him.'
'All these things are over now,' said Mary. 'Mr. Gresham told me yesterday that I should be received as Frank's future wife; and so, you see, I have come.' And then she slipped through Lady Arabella's arms and sat down, meekly down, on a chair. In five minutes she had escaped with Beatrice into the school-room, and was kissing the children, and turning over the new trousseau. They were, however, soon interrupted, and there was, perhaps, some other kissing besides that of the children.
'You have no business in here at all, Frank,' said Beatrice. 'Has he, Mary?'
'None in the world, I should think.'
'See what he has done to my poplin; I hope you won't have your things treated so cruelly. He'll be careful enough about them.'
'Is Oriel a good hand at packing up finery—eh, Beatrice?' asked Frank.
'He is, at any rate, too well behaved to spoil it.' Thus Mary was again made at home in the household of Greshamsbury.
