The Wyvern Mystery Volume I, II, III

In the small breakfast parlour of Oulton, a pretty girl, Miss Alice
Maybell, with her furs and wrappers about her, and a journey of forty
miles before her -- not by rail -- to Wyvern, had stood up to hug and kiss
her old aunt, and bid her good-bye.

"Now, do sit down again; you need not be in such a hurry -- you're not to
go for ten minutes or more," said the old lady; "do, there's a darling."

"If I'm not home before the sun goes down, aunt, Mr. Fairfield will be
so angry," said the girl, laying a hand on each shoulder of kind old
Lady Wyndale, and looking fondly, but also sadly, into her face.

"Which Mr. Fairfield, dear -- the old or the young one?"

"Old Mr. Fairfield, the Squire, as we call him at Wyvern. He'll really
be angry, and I'm a little bit afraid of him, and I would not vex him
for the world -- he has always been so kind."

As she answered, the young lady blushed a beautiful crimson, and the old
lady, not observing it, said --

"Indeed, I don't know why I said young -- young Mr. Fairfield is old
enough, I think, to be your father; but I want to know how you liked
Lord Tremaine. I told you how much he liked you. I'm a great believer in
first impressions. He was so charmed with you, when he saw you in Wyvern
Church. Of course he ought to have been thinking of something better;
but no matter -- the fact was so, and now he is, I really think, in love
-- very much -- and who knows? He's such a charming person, and there is
everything to make it -- I don't know what word to use -- but you know
Tremaine is quite a beautiful place, and he does not owe a guinea."

"You dear old auntie," said the girl, kissing her again on the cheek,
"wicked old darling -- always making great matches for me. If you had
remained in India, you'd have married me, I'm sure, to a native prince."

"Native fiddlestick; of course I could if I had liked, but you never
should have married a Mahomedan with my consent. Never mind though;
you're sure to do well; marriages are made in heaven, and I really
believe there is no use in plotting and planning. There was your darling
mamma, when we were both girls together, I said I should never consent
to marry a soldier or live out of England, and I did marry a soldier,
and lived twelve years of my life in India; and she, poor darling, said
again and again, she did not care who her husband might be, provided he
was not a clergyman, nor a person living all the year round in the
country -- _that_ no power could induce her to consent to, and yet she did
consent, and to both one and the other, and married a clergyman, and a
poor one, and lived and died in the country. So, after all, there's not
much use in planning beforehand."