She will be ready to accept thee soon, but not just yet."

"I tell her John Manners has forsaken her, but she will persist in her
waywardness, and I expect, forsooth, she will do so until--"

"Tut, tut, man," interposed Sir George, "it shall not be at Christmas,
as we would have had it; but even as she comes not to her senses soon,
you shall take her away. Say another month, Sir Edward, another month.
There, that is settled, trouble me no more, and now we will off to
mass."

They were in the garden, and through the open lattice window Manners
could hear them without the slightest trouble. At the mention of mass
he abruptly closed his book, and replacing it in his pocket, he crept
carefully into the dismal hollow under the pulpit, and pulling the
panel to after him he hid himself securely in the dark recess.

"So ho!" he murmured, as he fixed himself in his retreat; "the baron
is good. Another month and then, oh! and then?"

He stopped and relapsed into thought. His brow contracted, his lips
were tightly pressed, and his eyes stared fixedly through the darkness
of his retreat at the chinks of the panels in front, through which he
could see the place where his beloved would shortly sit.

"Aye, aye," he muttered, as he fiercely clapped his hand upon his
thigh. "It cannot be the worse for her, nor yet much worse for me. She
must do it; I will broach it to her now. Here they come."

The pulpit was none too strong, and as Nicholas ascended the stair and