"Sir Charles!"

"Miss Deyncourt!"

"I fear," with a glance at the yellow-back in his hand, "I am interrupting a studious hour, but—"

"Not in the least, I assure you," said Charles, shutting his novel. "What is regarded as study by the feminine intellect is to the masculine merely relaxation. I was 'unbending over a book,' that was all."

The process of "unbending" was being performed in the summer-house, whither he had retired after Evelyn and Ralph had started on their afternoon's ride to Vandon, in which he had refused to join.

"I thought I should find you here," continued Ruth, frankly. "I have been wishing to speak to you for several days, but you are as a rule so surrounded and encompassed on every side by Molly that I have not had an opportunity."

It had occurred to Charles once or twice during the last few days that Molly was occasionally rather in the way. Now he was sure of it. As Ruth appeared to hesitate, he pulled forward a rustic contorted chair for her.

"No, thanks," she said. "I shall not long interrupt the unbending process. I only came to ask—"

"To ask!" repeated Charles, who had got up as she was standing, and came and stood near her.

"You remember the first evening you were here?"

"I do."

"And what we spoke of at dinner?"

"Perfectly."

"I came to ask you how much you lent Raymond?" Ruth's clear, earnest eyes were fixed full upon him.

At this moment Charles perceived Lady Mary at a little distance, propelling herself gently over the grass in the direction of the summer-house. In another second she had perceived Charles and Ruth, and had turned precipitately, and hobbled away round the corner with surprising agility.

"Confound her!" inwardly ejaculated Charles.

"I wish to know how much you lent him," said Ruth again, as he did not answer, happily unconscious of what had been going on behind her back.

"Only what I was well able to afford."

"And has he paid it back since?"

"I am sure he understood I should not expect him to pay it back at once."

"But he has had it three years."

Charles did not answer.

"I feel sure he is not able to pay it. Will you kindly tell me how much it was?"

"No, Miss Deyncourt; I think not."

"Why not?"

"Because—excuse me, but I perceive that if I do you will instantly wish to pay it."

"I do wish to pay it."

"I thought so."

There was a short silence.

"I still wish it," said Ruth at last.

Charles was silent. Her pertinacity annoyed and yet piqued him. Being unmarried, he was not accustomed to opposition from a woman. He had no intention of allowing her to pay her brother's debt, and he wished she would drop the subject gracefully, now that he had made that fact evident.

"Perhaps you don't know," continued Ruth, "that I am very well off." (As if he did not know it! As if Lady Mary had not casually mentioned Ruth's fortune several times in his hearing!) "Lady Deyncourt left me twelve hundred a year, and I have a little of my own besides. You may not be aware that I have fourteen hundred and sixty-two pounds per annum."

"I am very glad to hear it."

"That is a large sum, you will observe."

"It is riches," assented Charles, "if your expenditure happens to be less."

"It does happen to be considerably less in my case."

"You are to be congratulated. And yet I have always understood that society exacts great sacrifices from women in the sums they feel obliged to devote to dress."

"Dress is an interesting subject, and I should be delighted to hear your views on it another time; but we are talking of something else just at this moment."

"I beg your pardon," said Charles, quickly, who did not quite like being brought back to the case in point. "I—the truth was, I wished to turn your mind from what we were speaking of. I don't want you to count sovereigns into my hand. I really should dislike it very much."

"You intend me to think from that remark that it was a small sum," said Ruth, with unexpected shrewdness. "I now feel sure it was a large one. It ought to be paid, and there is no one to do it but me. I know that what is firmness in a man is obstinacy in a woman, so do not on your side be too firm, or, who knows? you may arouse some of that obstinacy in me to which I should like to think myself superior."

"If," said Charles, with sudden eagerness, as if an idea had just struck him, "if I let you pay me this debt, will you on your side allow me to make a condition?"

"I should like to know the condition first."

"Of course. If I agree,"—Charles's light gray eyes had become keen and intent—"if I agree to receive payment of what I lent Deyncourt three years ago, will you promise not to pay any other debt of his, or ever to lend him money without the knowledge and approval of your relations?"

Ruth considered for a few minutes.

"I have so few relations," she said at length, with rather a sad smile, "and they are all prejudiced against poor Raymond. I think I am the only friend he has left in the world. I am afraid I could not promise that."

"Well," said Charles, eagerly, "I won't insist on relations. I know enough of those thorns in the flesh myself. I will say instead, 'natural advisers.' Come, Miss Deyncourt, you can't accuse me of firmness now!"

"My natural advisers," repeated Ruth, slowly. "I feel as if I ought to have natural advisers somewhere; but who are they? Where are they? I could not ask my sister or her husband for advice. I mean, I could not take it if I did. I should think I knew better myself. Uncle John? Evelyn? Lord Polesworth? Sir Charles, I am afraid the truth is I have never asked for advice in my life. I have always tried to do what seemed best, without troubling to know what other people thought about it. But as I am anxious to yield gracefully, will you substitute the word 'friends' for 'natural advisers'? I hope and think I have friends whom I could trust."

"Friends, then, let it be," said Charles. "Now," holding out his hand, "do you promise never, et cetera, et cetera, without first consulting your friends?"

Ruth put her hand into his.

"I do."

"That is right. How amiable we are both becoming! I suppose I must now inform you that two hundred pounds is the exact sum I lent your brother."

Ruth went back to the house, and in a few minutes returned with a check in her hand. She held it towards Charles, who took it, and put it in his pocket-book.

"Thank you," she said, with gratitude in her eyes and voice.

"We have had a pitched battle," said Charles, relapsing into his old indifferent manner. "Neither of us has been actually defeated, for we never called out our reserves, which I felt would have been hardly fair on you; but we do not come forth with flying colors. I fear, from your air of elation, you actually believe you have been victorious."

"I agree with you that there has been no defeat," replied Ruth; "but I won't keep you any longer from your studies. I am just going out driving with Lady Mary to have tea with the Thursbys."

"Miss Deyncourt, don't allow a natural and most pardonable vanity to delude you to such an extent. Don't go out driving the victim of a false impression. If you will consider one moment—"

"Not another moment," replied Ruth; "our bugles have sung truce, and I am not going to put on my war-paint again for any consideration. There comes the carriage," as a distant rumbling was heard. "I must not keep Lady Mary waiting;" and she was gone.

Charles heard the carriage roll away again, and when half an hour later he sauntered back towards the house, he was surprised to see Lady Mary sitting in the drawing-room window.

"What! Not gone, after all!" he exclaimed, in a voice in which surprise was more predominant than pleasure.

"No, Charles," returned Lady Mary in her measured tones, looking slowly up at him over her gold-rimmed spectacles. "I felt a slight return of my old enemy, and Miss Deyncourt kindly undertook to make my excuses to Mrs. Thursby."

No one knew what the old enemy was, or in what manner his mysterious assaults on Lady Mary were conducted; but it was an understood thing that she had private dealings with him, in which he could make himself very disagreeable.

"Has Molly gone with her?"

"No; Molly is making jam in the kitchen, I believe. Miss Deyncourt most good-naturedly offered to take her with her; but,"—with a shake of the head—"the poor child's totally unrestrained appetites and lamentable self-will made her prefer to remain where she was."

"I am afraid," said Charles, meditatively, as if the idea were entirely a novel one, "Molly is getting a little spoiled among us. It is natural in you, of course; but there is no excuse for me. There never is. There are, I confess, moments when I don't regard the child's immortal welfare sufficiently to make her present existence less enjoyable. What a round of gayety Molly's life is! She flits from flower to flower, so to speak; from me to cook and the jam-pots; from the jam-pots to some fresh delight in the loft, or in your society. Life is one long feast to Molly. Whatever that old impostor the Future may have in store for her, at any rate she is having a good time now."

There was a shade of regretful sadness in Charles's voice that ruffled his aunt.

"The child is being ruined," she said, with resigned bitterness.

"Not a bit of it. I was spoiled as a child, and look at me!"

"You are spoiled. I don't spoil you; but other people do. Society does. And the result is that you are so hard to please that I don't believe you will ever marry. You look for a perfection in others which is not to be found in yourself."

"I don't fancy I should appear to advantage side by side with perfection," said Charles, in his most careless manner; and he rose, and wandered away into the garden.

He was irritated with Lady Mary, with her pleased looks during the last few days, with her annoying celerity that afternoon in the garden. It was all the more annoying because he was conscious that Ruth amused and interested him in no slight degree. She had the rare quality of being genuine. She stood for what she was, without effort or self-consciousness. Whether playful or serious, she was always real. Beneath a reserved and rather quiet manner there lurked a piquant unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell which would come uppermost, had a strange attraction for him. He had grown accustomed to watch for and try to provoke the sudden gleam of fun in the serious eyes, which always preceded a retort given with an air of the sweetest feminine meekness, which would make Ralph rub himself all over with glee, and tell Charles, chuckling, he "would not get much change out of Ruth."

If only she had not been asked to Atherstone on purpose to meet him. If only Lady Mary had not arranged it; if only Evelyn did not know it; if only Ralph had not guessed it; if only he himself had not seen it from the first instant! Ruth and Molly were the only two unconscious persons in the house.

"I wonder," said Charles to himself, "why people can't allow me to manage my own affairs? Oh, what a world it is for unmarried men with money! Why did I not marry fifteen years ago, when every woman with a straight nose was an angel of light; when I felt a noble disregard for such minor details as character, mind, sympathy, if the hair and the eyes were the right shade? Why did I not marry when I was out of favor with my father, when I was head over ears in debt, and when at least I could feel sure no one would marry me for my money? Molly," as that young lady came running towards him with lingering traces of jam upon her flushed countenance, "you have arrived just in time. Uncle Charles was getting so dull without you. What have you been after all this time?"

"Cook and me have made thirty-one pots and a little one," said Molly, inserting a very sticky hand into Charles's. "And your Mr. Brown helped. Cook told him to go along at first, which wasn't kind, was it? but he stayed all the same; and I skimmed with a big spoon, and she poured it in the pots. Only they aren't covered up with paper yet, if you want to see them. And oh! Uncle Charles, what do you think? Father and mother have come back from their ride, and that nice funny man who was at the school-feast is coming here to-morrow, and I shall show him my guinea-pigs. He said he wanted to see them very much."

"Oh, he did, did he? When was that?"

"At the school-feast. Oh!" with enthusiasm, "he was so nice, Uncle Charles, so attentive, and getting things when you want them; and the wheel went over his foot when he was shaking hands, and he did not mind a bit; and he filled our teapots for us—Ruth's big one, you know, that holds such a lot."

"Oh! He filled the big teapot, did he?"

"Yes, and mine too; and then he helped us to unpack the dolls. He was so kind to me and Cousin Ruth."

"Kind to Miss Deyncourt, was he?"

"Yes; and when we went away he ran and opened the gate for us. Oh, there comes Cousin Ruth back again in the carriage. I'll run and tell her he's coming. She will be glad."

"Aunt Mary is right," said Charles, watching his niece disappear. "Molly has formed a habit of expressing herself with unnecessary freedom. Decidedly she is a little spoiled."