He
would not even tell her of his appointment. He had done all that in
him lay and would prepare himself for his journey as a single man.
A minister going out to Patagonia would of course have some little
leave of absence allowed him, and he arranged with his friend
Mounser Green that he should not start till April.
But when Lord Rufford's second letter reached Miss Trefoil down at
Greenacre Manor, where she had learned by common report that Mr.
Morton was to be the new minister at Patagonia,--when she believed
as she then did that the lord was escaping her, that, seeing and
feeling his danger, he had determined not to jump into the lion's
mouth by meeting her at Mistletoe, that her chance there was all
over; then she remembered her age, her many seasons, the hard work
of her toilet, those tedious long and bitter quarrels with her
mother, the ever-renewed trouble of her smiles, the hopelessness of
her future should she smile in vain to the last, and the countless
miseries of her endless visitings; and she remembered too the 1200
pounds a year that Morton had offered to settle on her and the
assurance of a home of her own though that home should be at
Bragton. For an hour or two she had almost given up the hope of
Rufford and had meditated some letter to her other lover which
might at any rate secure him.
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