"But eight months is a long time." Hugh went out to smoke his pipe on the church-wall in a moody, unhappy state of mind.

He had hoped to have done so well in regard to Mrs.Trevelyan! Till he had met Colonel Osborne, he felt sure, almost sure, that she would have refused to see that pernicious troubler of the peace of families.

In this he found that he had been disappointed; but he had not expected that Priscilla would have been so much opposed to the arrangement which he had made about the house, and then he had been buoyed up by the anticipation of some delight in meeting Nora Rowley.

There was, at any rate, the excitement of seeing her to keep his spirits from flagging.

He had seen her, and had had the opportunity of which he had so long been thinking.