Barbara had been exercising all her fascinations in beguiling Mr. Warde. She was attired in one of Orme's blue smocks, in which her small body was somewhat lost, but in which she was equally pretty as when attired in her own daintinesses. Her nurse had fostered in her a taste for dress, which so far prompted a desire for her father's approval; but the male tuition she was now under promised soon to qualify this taste.

She had informed Mr. Warde of her importance in Orme's dress, and received his sympathy, with pretty little pattings down of the blue linen, until recalled to business by Sandy's whistle.

"Bardedie go dig," she announced, showing all her white teeth in an alluring smile, and trotting off to the cave side.

Down below, the boys were strenuously repairing the ravages of the thunderstorm, and all hands—and baskets—were in requisition. The rÔle of highwayman, like that of ghost, having palled, they were eager to begin the more important one of settler. David had arranged the start for the next day, and they were excitedly making preparations and collecting necessary stores.

These included numerous and unlikely things.

"Settlers have spades; we shan't want any, as ours isn't diggin' ground," objected David to Sandy's list.

"It's ridic'lus to go settling wivout spades," said Sandy.

"Less to carry, and there'll be enough, and it isn't like straight, even ground."

"We must have a blanket. That can come off a bed. It's a mountain, Dave, 'member—the top of a mountain. An' our fambly to get up an' all. It'll be awfly hard," said Sandy, stopping for a moment in his burrowings to mop his heated face. Just then Barbara danced in, planting her feet in great delight in the damp mud Sandy had excavated.

"Me," she demanded, "me too. Barbedie dig"; and, seizing a basket, she began to fill it, in keen emulation of Orme's business-like labour. Orme was a most useful coadjutor in anything. When once set to work, he always went on stolidly till he was told to stop, or till material failed him. Nothing in the way of temptation, no delight or allurement, could turn him aside.

Marjorie's tools, like his, were her two little fat hands, and these were soon, to her delight, plastered with mud.

"How shall we get her?" inquired David, pausing and looking at the baby, working so ardently. "Must she come too?"

"'Course she must," said Sandy. "We ain't got no other girl. 'Sides, it ud be a shame to leave her out just when the fun begins. She'll have to be fetched. We'll get her to tea."

The boys' heads got together over schemes which grew more and more ambitious, and by the time the passage was cleared of the dÉbris and mud, and the little ones shunted back from discovery of its exit, all details had been planned.

Sandy, hearing voices, reconnoitred, with only his eyes above ground, to find out whether friend or foe were with Marjorie. He was delighted to see Barbara's father. Here was his opportunity.

It was probably the dirtiest little boy in England who came persuasively to Mr. Pelham's side, holding the transformed Barbara—now almost equally dirty—by the hand.

"Your baby likes our house," he said. "May she come to-morrow, and stop to tea?"

Barbara, gazing with delight at her unrecognisable hands, held them up to her father's view; sufficient plea, she held these hands for a repetition of delight. And when Ross and Orme ambled up alongside, regarding him solemnly with their round blue eyes, awaiting his verdict, he said "Yes."

Sandy's remnant of conscience prompted him to say, "We'll bring her back some time—honour bright. Don't want that nasty nurse prancing 'bout."

"Hush, Sandy!" said Marjorie.

"Don't," reiterated Sandy sturdily; "her skirts scrape an' scratch—an' she screams if you do things sudden."

"I hope it is quite safe," Marjorie said a little anxiously, as Barbara was marched off to the nursery by all her swains, to be cleaned, and reinstated in her satin gown. "Sandy doesn't quite realise what a baby she is."

"No harm could happen on the way down," Mr. Pelham said thoughtfully, "and it is but a step from my gate to the Court. I have watched how careful they are with her."

Marjorie's solicitude for his baby prompted him to inquire, rising unwillingly when that small person reappeared, "Are you dining at the Deanery to-morrow?"

"Yes," answered Marjorie. "Charity has some musical people coming down from London—and you——"

She paused, recollecting Charity's pretty air of possession when mentioning Mr. Pelham and his singing. She had said, "Mr. Pelham and I have been practising together a good deal—he sent for some new songs from town. Our voices suit perfectly—there are very few evenings, when we are disengaged, that he doesn't find his way down the hill."

She did not mention the warm and recurrent invitation of the Dean. Nor could Marjorie realise the allurement of the pretty drawing-room with its charming hostess to the lonely man. Possibly, neither would she have believed that sometimes a visionary hope that he might find her with her friend had been his lure.

Marjorie's was a home to which he did not often like to venture unasked. One evening, he had volunteered to be Charity's messenger; and he had been struck by the aloofness and quiet of the little scene into which he had been announced.

The lamp, on the minor canon's table, shining white on the scattered papers, lit up his scholarly face, as, busy with his writing and the thoughts it brought, he turned a far-away gaze on the visitor.

Another lamp, by Mrs. Bethune's sofa, shone on Marjorie's burnished head, and lighted the fragile beauty of her mother. Both were busy with needlework—the pretty smocks of the little boys. Mrs. Bethune's slender hands rested whilst she welcomed and talked to Mr. Pelham; but Marjorie's went on with their occupation. He noticed, too, the open book which lay upon the table; the quiet homeliness of this little scene, which yet Marjorie's rapidly moving fingers made part of a more strenuous life than the one he had just left; the work-a-day room in which were no luxuries, except the little table of hothouse flowers, always kept fresh and fragrant by Mrs. Bethune's many friends; and the bent, aloof figure of the student—all gave the room a totally different atmosphere from the luxurious apartment whence he had come. Its calm, and peace, and withdrawal, struck Mr. Pelham with a sense of chill. He had no part in it. Mother and child were enough for each other. Marjorie had none of Charity's pretty restlessnesses and fusses for her visitor's entertainment. As the conversation went on, she scarcely raised her eyes. He talked to Mrs. Bethune, prolonging the conversation that he might enjoy the quiet pose of Marjorie's slim figure, the pretty curves of cheek and ear, and the moving swiftness of her fingers.

Only now and then Marjorie lifted her head to meet his gaze, with the wistful look now becoming habitual. For Mr. Warde's steady wooing, although, according to his promise, unvoiced, was sufficiently assiduous; and Marjorie was unconsciously making up her mind to a future which she realised would be a great delight to her parents. She was quite matter-of-fact about it. It did not occur to her that she was of sufficient importance to revolt at such a future. She did not once say to her mother, "It is my own life I have to live. Why should I marry Mr. Warde if I don't love him?" She put aside the fancies of a far different lover which, in moments of unrest, or rare idleness, filled her day-dreams.

"Life isn't a fairy tale," she settled with a sigh, at the remembrance of an arresting look she could not banish. "He cares for Charity. Everybody says so. How can I be so silly? And yet—and yet——"

"Could you not come up and see my house some day?" Mr. Pelham had asked that evening, as he was leaving. "Oh!" as a sudden thought struck him, "I have a carriage—scarcely ever used. I believe it could be made as comfortable as your chair. Would it shake you too much? And then," turning eagerly to Marjorie, "your mother could drive every day it was fine. It would be a kindness to use it!" he pleaded.

Marjorie's face lit in response. "Mother does drive sometimes. Mr. Warde——" and with angry dismay, the looker-on beheld the mounting flush. "Oh, everybody is very kind in that way," she finished hurriedly.

"But come and see my house and pictures," he persisted, turning to Mrs. Bethune. "Come to-morrow, and I will be at home to show you them, and see that you are not tired."

The visit had been duly paid and enjoyed, and plans for others made, till it soon happened that, thanks also to the boys and Barbara, scarcely a day passed without communication between the Canons' Court and The Ridges.

And so love, unconsciously fed and fostered, had grown apace.

There was a silence under the beech tree after Mr. Pelham's departure, during which both Marjorie and Mr. Warde were busy with their own thoughts. It was broken by Mr. Warde.

"When is that engagement to be announced? Is it settled yet?"

"What engagement?"

"Pelham and your friend, Charity. I never drop in of an evening but I find him there."

"Perhaps he says the same about you," said Marjorie, a flash of mischief in her eyes.

Mr. Warde's speech had broken in upon a dreamy wonder, which was making a song of joy in her heart, as to the meaning of Mr. Pelham's lingering look as he had said good-bye. With a start of recollection, and a pulling of herself together, Marjorie remembered that she had known this man, on whose looks she was dwelling, just six weeks. Six weeks! And this other man, sitting so near, with an air of possession at which her whole heart rebelled—though she quelled the expression she was longing to give way to—she had known all her life! All her life he had been intimate—one of them—as near almost as her father. And how good he had been to her, to them all! How the household would miss the constant care—first for one, then for another—which in so many ways he had evinced. Marjorie's conscience smote her when she recalled his many kindnesses, accepted as a matter of course, as between lifelong friends; kindnesses, as she quickly remembered, entirely on one side.

The recollection of her mother's pleading for him drew Marjorie's eyes in mute questioning to his face. Would he feel very much if she could not bring herself to care for him? He looked so comfortable, and healthy, and prosperous. Surely it could not matter to him what a girl might do? And then—he turned, and looked at her suddenly, to meet the questioning in her eyes. A queer, rigid expression hardened his mouth. For a moment he waited, as though preparing for a blow. Then he stood up and looked down at her, shielding her by his action from any lookers-on from the windows.

"Well, Marjorie, you have something to say to me?" and she heard him catch his breath, and pause to recover, before he added: "Say it quickly, dear. Have you changed? Have you reconsidered?"

"Mother——" stammered Marjorie, taken by surprise; "no, I haven't changed, but——"

"Yes," he encouraged; and he vaguely wondered that she was not stunned by the loud beating of his heart. It had come at last, what he longed for. It overmastered him.

"Mother said—it is love." Her head was bent, and her voice was a whisper, scarcely audible in the soft summer air; but the man heard.

"And you—and you?" he breathed.

Marjorie lifted her eyes, startled. This—what was it?—this transforming emotion, shining in the eyes, usually so quiet? She shrank back.

"No, do not," she implored. "I do not know—I do not feel like that."

She made as though to rise, and pushed him gently away. What had she said? What had she done to cause such feeling?

"Nay, Marjorie," he said, and he grew rigid again in self-control; "tell me what was in your mind. I will not vex you—I will claim nothing; only tell me—tell me," he entreated.

Marjorie, looking into her memory, searched in vain for something that would meet this demand. A vague memory of her mother's words about marriage and Mr. Warde, mingled with the Duchess's conversation at the Deanery; a recollection of the constant coupling of Charity's name with that of Mr. Pelham; a tired feeling that she had been worsted in a struggle, and could no longer fight; a yearning for comfort in some undefined sorrow, to which she could give no name—a sense of irrevocableness, of emptiness, of ineffable longing. This is what Marjorie felt, and from which she turned, as human nature will turn from a hurt to which experience can give no cure.

"I do not think—I do not know whether it is love," she said at last. The man winced unconsciously at the icy aloofness of the girlish voice. "But—if—you—care——" The words fell sighingly from her lips.

"If I care?" he repeated slowly, and his voice was as cold as hers in the effort at repression; "if I care? Marjorie, I care so much that to make you happy, to win your love, I would give my life. My darling"—he paused—"how dear—how dear—I cannot make you understand. You shall never regret—never!"

He looked down for a second at the bowed white face, so unlike the face of a happy girl hearing her lover tell that she is beloved, and said softly:

"You will like to be alone; I will go. Do not think of me in any other way than as just your old friend, until—until you give it me willingly. I will claim nothing more."