"And won't you be my mamma to the last;--won't you?" And she threw
her arms round her step-mother's neck and kissed her. "I won't go
one way, and you another. He doesn't wish it. It is quite different
from that. I don't care a straw for Hampton Wick and Rufford; but I
will never be separated from you and the girls and papa. Say you
will come, mamma. I will not let you go till you say you will
come." Of course she had her own way, and Mrs. Masters had to feel
with a sore heart that she also must go out Ushanting. She knew,
that in spite of her domestic powers, she would be stricken dumb in
the drawing-room at Bragton and was unhappy.
Mary had another scheme in which she was less fortunate. She took
it into her head that Larry Twentyman might possibly be induced to
come to her wedding. She had heard how he had ridden and gained
honour for himself on the day that the hounds killed their fox at
Norrington, and thought that perhaps her own message to him had
induced him so far to return to his old habits. And now she longed
to ask him, for her sake, to be happy once again. If any girl ever
loved the man she was going to marry with all her heart, this girl
loved Reginald Morton. He had been to her, when her love was
hopeless, so completely the master of her heart that she could not
realise the possibility of affection for another.
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