"Oh yes!" he answered, drily--"I 'love' you! You know I do. We understand each other!"
"I guess we do!" she thought to herself as she left him--"And when I'm tired of being called 'My lady' or 'Your Grace' I'll divorce him! And I'll take care he isn't a penny the richer! There's always that game to play, and you bet the Smart Set know how to play it!"
But of the ways, doings or saying of the Smart Set the village of St. Rest knows little and cares less. It dozes peacefully with the sun in its eyes, year in and year out, under the shadow of the eastern hills, with its beloved 'Passon' and now its equally beloved 'Passon's wife,' as king and queen of its tiny governmental concerns, drawing health and peace, contentment and tranquillity from the influences of nature, unspoilt by contact with the busier and wearier world. 'Passon Walden's' wedding-day was the chief great historic event of its conscious life. For on that never-to-be- forgotten and glorious occasion, the tenantry of Abbot's Manor, together with all the villagers and the school-children were entertained at an open-air festival and dance, which lasted all the afternoon and evening, on the broad smooth greensward encircling the famous 'Five Sister' beeches where bride and bridegroom had looked upon each other for the first time. What a high tide of simple revelry it was to be sure! Never had the delicate tremulous green foliage of the rescued trees waved over a happier scene. 'Many a kiss both odd and even' was exchanged among lads and lasses at that blithe merry-making,--even Cicely and Julian Adderley were not always to be found when they were wanted, having taken to 'composing music and poetry together,' which no doubt quite accounted for their long rambles together away from all the rest of the merry crowd. Mrs. Spruce, with a circle of her gossips round her, sat talking the whole livelong day on the 'ways o' the Lord bein' past findin' out.'
"For," said she, "when Miss Maryllia first come 'ome she 'adn't an idee o' goin' to hear Passon Walden, an' sez I 'do-ee go an' hear 'im,' an' she sez--'No, Spruce, I cannot, I don't believe in it'-- an' I sez to myself, 'never mind, the Lord 'e knows 'is own, which He do, but 'ard as are His ways I never did think He'd a' brought her to be Passon's wife,--that do beat me, though it's just what it should be, an' if the Lord don't know what should be why then no one don't, an' that 'minds me o' when I sent for Passon to see me unpack Miss Maryllia's boxes, he was that careful he made me pick up a pair o' pink shoes what 'ad fell on the floor--'Take care o' them,' he sez--Lor!--now I come to think of it, he was mortal struck over them pink shoes!"