CHAPTER XCVII.
IN WHICH OBEDIAH ARRIVES.
In the meantime our worthy little Lieutenant Puddock--by this time quite reconciled to the new state of things, walked up to Belmont, with his head a great deal fuller--such and so great are human vagaries--of the interview pending between him and Aunt Becky than of the little romance which had exploded so unexpectedly about a fortnight ago.
He actually saw Miss Gertrude and my Lord Dunoran walking side by side, on the mulberry walk by the river; and though he looked and felt a little queer, perhaps, a little absurd, he did not sigh, or murmur a stanza, or suffer a palpitation; but walked up to the hall-door, and asked for Miss Rebecca Chattesworth.
Aunt Becky received him in the drawing-room.

She was looking very pale, and spoke very little, and very gently for her.

In a reconciliation between two persons of the opposite sexes--though the ages be wide apart--there is almost always some little ingredient of sentiment.
The door was shut, and Puddock's voice was heard in an indistinct murmur, upon the lobby.

Then there was a silence, or possibly, some speaking in a still lower key.

Then Aunt Becky was crying, and the lieutenant's voice cooing through it.