The next day awakes calm and fair, and full of the rich ripeness that belongs to August. Lilian, opening her blue eyes upon the world at half-past seven, calls her nurse, and being dressed rushes forth into the garden to drink in all the first sweet freshness of the day.

The dew still lingers upon lawn and blossom; the spiders' webs glisten like jeweled nets in the dancing sunbeams; the exquisite opal flush of the morning sky has grown and spread and deepened, until all the heavens are tinged with warmest carmine.

There is "splendor in the grass," and "glory in the flower," and Lilian, flitting from bush to bush, enjoys everything to its utmost; she plucks two pale roses for her own bosom, and one, deep red and richly perfumed, to lay beside Lady Chetwoode's plate. This is a usual morning offering not to be neglected.

Just as she has made a careful choice, the breakfast bell rings loudly, and, running at her quickest—most reckless—speed through the hall, she barely succeeds in stopping herself as she comes up to Sir Guy at the door of the morning-room.

"Oh," cries she, with a little gasp, "another moment and I should have been in your arms. I never saw you. Good-morning, Guardy," gayly.

"Good-morning, my ward. I beg you to understand I could have welcomed that other moment. Why, what an early little bird you are! How long have you been abroad?"

"For hours and hours, half a day, while you—lazy man—were sound asleep. See what spoil I have gathered:" pointing to the heavy roses at her breast.

"Lovely, indeed," says Guy, who is secretly of opinion that the wild-rose complexion she has snatched from the amorous wind is by far the loveliest spoil of the two.

"And is not this sweet?" she says, holding up to his face the "red, red rose," with a movement full of grace.

"Very," replies he, and stooping presses his lips lightly to her white hand.

"I meant the rose, not the hand," says she, with a laugh and a faint blush.

"Did you? I thought the hand very much the sweeter of the two. Is it for me?"

"No!" says Miss Chesney, with much emphasis; and, telling him he is quite too foolish to be listened to any longer, she opens the door of the breakfast-room, and they both enter it together, to find all the others assembled before them, and the post lying in the centre of the table. All, that is, that remains of it,—namely, one letter for Lilian and two or three for Guy.

These latter, being tinged with indigo, are of an uninteresting description and soon read. Miss Chesney's, on the contrary, is evidently full of information. It consists of two whole sheets closely covered by a scrawling handwriting that resembles nothing so much as the struggles of a dying fly.

When she has read it twice over carefully—and with considerable difficulty—she lays it down and looks anxiously at Lady Chetwoode.

"Auntie," she begins, with a bright blush and a rather confused air.

"Yes, dear?"

"This letter"—touching it—"is from my cousin."

"Yes,—from your cousin? The lad who grew up with you at the Park?" says Lady Chetwoode, with a kindly nod of comprehension.

Then ensues a pause. Somehow every one has stopped talking, and Lady Chetwoode has set down the teapot and turned to Lilian with an air full of expectancy. They all feel that something yet remains to be said.

Possessed with this idea, and seeing Lilian's hesitation, Lady Chetwoode says, in her gentlest tones:

"Well, dear?"

"He is unhappy," says Lilian, running one of her fingers up and down the table-cloth and growing more and more embarrassed: "every year he used to come to the Park for his holidays, and now——"

"And now he cannot go to the Park: is that it?"

"Yes. A little while ago he joined his regiment, and now he has leave of absence, and he has nowhere to spend it except at Colonel Graham's, who is his guardian and his uncle, and he hates Colonel Graham," says Lilian, impressively, looking at Lady Chetwoode with appealing eyes.

"Poor boy," says that kindest of women, "I do not like to hear of his being unhappy. Perhaps, Lilian, you would wish——"

"I want you to ask him here," says Lilian, quickly and boldly, coloring furiously, and fixing her great honest eyes on Lady Chetwoode. "He said nothing about it, but I know he would like to be where I am."

"My dear, of course," says Lady Chetwoode, with most unusual briskness for her, "ask him instantly to come here as soon as you like, to stay as long as you like."

"Auntie Nannie," says Lilian, rising tumultuously from her chair, "you are the dearest, kindest, best of women!" She presses her lips gently, although rapturously, to her auntie's cheek, after which she returns to her seat. "Now I am thoroughly content," she says naively: "I could not bear to picture Taffy wretched, and that old Colonel Graham is a downright Tartar!"

"'Taffy'! what an extraordinary name!" says Florence. "Is it a fancy name?"

"No; it is, I am ashamed to say, a nickname. I believe he was christened James, but one day when we were both almost babies he stole from me my best doll and squeezed the eyes out of it to see what lay behind, and I was very angry, and said he was a regular 'Taffy' to do such a thing. You know the old rhyme?" turning to Lady Chetwoode with a blush and a light laugh:

There is a good deal more of it, quite as interesting, but of course you know it. Nurse laughed when I so christened him, and after that he was always called 'Master Taffy' by the servants, and nothing else."

"How nicknames do cling to one!"

"I don't believe I should know him by any other now. It suits him much better than his own, as he doesn't look the least in the world like a James."

"How old is your cousin?" asks Florence, with an eye to business.

"A year older than I am."

"And that is——"

"Nineteen."

"Indeed! I should have thought you older than that."

"He is very like me, and he is a dragoon!" says Lilian, proudly. "But I have never seen him since he was gazetted."

"Then you have not seen him in his uniform?" says Guy.

"No. But he tells me," glancing at her letter, "he looks 'uncommonly jolly' in it."

They all laugh. Even Florence condescends to be amused.

"When may we expect this hero?" asks Guy, kindly.

"His leave begins next week," answers Lilian, looking at Lady Chetwoode. "If he might come then, it would be such a comfort to him."

"Of course he must come then," says Lady Chetwoode. "Do not let him lose a day of his precious leave. I remember when Guy was in the army how stingy they were about granting him a few days now and then."

"The Mater's 'few days' always meant eight months out of the twelve," says Cyril, laughing, "and anything like the abuse she used to shower upon the colonel because he didn't see it in the light that she did, was never heard. It is unfit for publication."

"Archibald Chesney is coming here the twenty-ninth," says Guy. "So you will be able to make choice between your two cousins."

"Is Archibald coming?" surprised. "But my choice is already made. No one shall ever get inside Taffy in my affections."

"Thrice blessed Taffy," says Cyril. "See what it is to be a young and gallant plunger!"

"That wouldn't weigh with me," says Lilian, indignantly.

"Would it not?" asks Guy. "I was hoping otherwise. I was a plunger once. What is the renowned Taffy's other name?"

"Musgrave," says Lilian.

"A very pretty name," remarks Miss Beauchamp, who has received an unexpected check by the morning's post, and is consequently in high good humor.

"I think so too," returns Lilian.

"Five distinct blushes, and all about Taffy," says Cyril, meditatively. "Happy Taffy! I have counted them religiously. Are you very much in love with him, Lilian?"

"'In love'! nonsense!" laughing. "If you only saw Taffy! (But," with a glad smile, "you soon will.) He never remembers anything half an hour after he has said it, and besides," scornfully, "he is only a boy."

"'Only a boy'! Was there ever such willful waste! Such reckless, extravagant, woful waste! To throw away five priceless, divine blushes upon 'only a boy'! Oh, that I were a boy! Perhaps, Lilian, when you come to know me longer I shall be happy enough to have one whole blush all to myself."

"Be consoled," says Miss Chesney, saucily: "I feel assured the longer I know you, the more reason I shall have to blush for you!"

* * * * * * *

All through the day Miss Chesney's joy makes itself felt. She is thoroughly happy, and takes very good care every one shall know it. She sings through the house, "up-stairs, down-stairs, and in my lady's chamber," gay as any lark, and inundates her nurse with vain conjectures and interrogations; as for example, whether she thinks Taffy will be much changed,—and whether twelve months could possibly produce a respectable moustache,—and if she really believes the fact of his being a full-blown dragoon will have a demoralizing effect upon him.

"An' no doubt it will, ninny," says nurse, shaking her beribboned head very solemnly, "I have no opinion of those soldiering ways myself. I fear me he will be growing wilder an' wilder every day."

"Oh! if that's all!" says Miss Lilian, with a relieved sigh. "I am only afraid he will be growing steadier and steadier; and Taffy would be ruined if he gave himself airs. I can't endure dignified young men."

"I don't think you need fret about that, my dear," says nurse, with conviction. "I never yet saw much signs of it about him."

Having used up all nurse's powers of conversation, Lilian goes on to Lady Chetwoode's boudoir, and finds out from her the room Taffy will be likely to occupy. Having inspected it, and brought up half the servants to change every article of furniture in the room into a different position, and given as much trouble as possible, and decided in her own mind the precise flowers she will place upon his dressing-table the morning of his arrival, she goes back to her auntie to tell her all she has done.

In fact, any one so busy as Miss Chesney during all this day can scarcely be imagined. Her activity is surprising, and draws from Cyril the remark that she ought to go as hospital nurse to the wounded Turks, as she seems eminently fitted for an energetic life.

After luncheon she disappears for a while, so that at last—though not for long—something like repose falls upon the house, which sinks into a state of quietude only to be equaled by that of Verne's "Van Tricasse."

Miss Beauchamp is in her room, studying art; Cyril is walking with a heart full of hope toward The Cottage; Lilian is absent; Guy is up-stairs with his mother, relating to her a new grievance anent poachers.

The lad now in trouble is an old offender, and Guy is puzzled what to do with him. As a rule all scamps have something interesting about them, and this Heskett is an unacknowledged favorite of Sir Guy's.

"Still I know I ought to dismiss him," he says, with a rather troubled air, and an angry, disappointed expression upon his face.

"He is young, poor lad," says Lady Chetwoode.

"So he is, and his mother is so respectable. One hardly knows what to do. But this last is such a flagrant act, and I swore I would pack him about his business if it occurred again. The fact is, I rather fancy the boy, and his wild ways, and don't like driving him to destruction. What shall I do, mother?"

"Don't do anything, my dear," replies she, easily.

"I wish I could follow your advice,"—smiling,—"but, unfortunately, if I let him off again I fear it will be a bad example to the others. I almost think——"

But what he thinks on this particular subject is never known.

There is a step outside the door,—a step well known to one at least of those within,—the "soft frou-frou and rustle" of a woman's gown,—and then the door is pushed very gently open, and Lilian enters, with a curious little bundle in her arms.

"See what I've got!" she cries, triumphantly, going over to Lady Chetwoode, and kneeling down beside her. "It's a baby, a real live baby! look at it, auntie; did you ever see such a beauty?"

"A baby," says Lady Chetwoode, fearfully, putting up her glasses, and staring cautiously down upon the rosy little fellow who in Lilian's encircling arms is making a desperate effort to assert his dignity, by sitting up and glaring defiantly around him.

"Yes, indeed; I carried him away when I found him, and have been playing with him for the last ten minutes in my own room. Then I began to think that you might like to see him, too."

"That was very nice of you, my dear," with some hesitation. "It is certainly a very clean baby, but its dress is coarse. Whose baby is it?"

"He belongs to the laundress, I think," says Lilian, "but I'm not quite sure. I was running through the kitchen when I saw him; isn't he a rogue?" as baby puts up a chubby hand to seize the golden locks so near him: "look at his eyes, as big as saucers."

She laughs delightedly, and baby laughs back at her again, and makes another violent jump at her yellow hair. Sir Guy, gazing intently at the pretty picture, at Lilian's flushed and lovely face, thinks he has never before seen her look half so sweet. Gay, merry, fascinating she always is, but with this new and womanly tenderness within her eyes, her beauty seems trebled. "See, he wants my hair: is he not a darling?" she says, turning her face, rose-red with pleasure, up to Sir Guy.

"The laundress's child,—Lilian, my dear!" says Lady Chetwoode, in a faint tone of expostulation.

"Well, Jane was holding it in her arms, but it can't be hers, decidedly, because she hasn't got one."

"Proof positive," says Guy.

"Nor can it be cook's, because hers is grown up: so it must be the laundress's. Besides, she was standing by, and she looked so glad about it and so pleased when I took it that I am sure she must be his mother. And of course she is proud of you, you bonny boy: so should I be, with your lovely face. Oh, look at his little fists! he is doubling them up just as though he were going to fight the world. And so he shall fight it, if he likes, a darling! Come; your mammy is pining for you."

As she speaks she rises, but baby is loath to go yet awhile. He crows so successfully at Lady Chetwoode that he makes another conquest of her, and receives several gentle pats and a kiss from her, to Lilian's great gratification.

"But he is too heavy for you," says her ladyship, addressing Lilian. "Guy, ring the bell for one of the servants to take him down."

"And offend his mother mortally. No indeed, auntie. We should get no clothes fit to wear next week if we committed such a betise. As I brought him up, so I shall carry him down, though, to do him justice, he is heavy. No servant shall touch him, the sweet boy,"—this to baby in a fond aside.

"I will carry him down for you," says Guy, advancing slowly from the window where he has been standing.

"You! Oh, Sir Guy, fancy you condescending to touch a baby. Though I forgot," with a quick, mischievous look at him from her azure eyes, "I believe there once was a baby you even professed to be fond of; but that was long ago. By the bye, what were you looking so stern about just as I came in? Were you passing sentence of death on any one?"

"Not quite so bad as that," says Lady Chetwoode. "It is another of those tiresome poachers. And this Heskett, is certainly a very naughty boy. He was caught in the act last night, and Guy doesn't know what to do with him."

"Let him off, forgive him," says Lilian, lightly, speaking to her guardian. "You can't think how much pleasanter you will feel if you do."

"I believe you are right," says Guy, laughing, "and I dare say I should give him a last chance, but that I have passed my word. Give me that great heavy child: he looks as though he were weighing you down to the ground."

"I think she holds him very prettily," says Lady Chetwoode: "I should like to have a picture of her just so."

"Perhaps some day she will gratify you," returns Guy, encouragingly. "Are you going to give me that enfant terrible, Miss Chesney, before you expire?"

"I am stronger than you think. And are you quite sure you can hold a baby? that you won't let it fall? Take care, now, and don't look as though you thought he would break. That will do. Auntie, don't you think he would make a capital nurse?"

"I hope that child will reach its mother alive," says auntie, in a tone suggestive of doubt, after which Guy, escorted by Lilian, leaves the room.

Half-way down the stairs this brilliant procession meets Florence coming up.

"What is that?" she asks, stopping short in utter amazement, and staring blankly at the baby, who is blinking his great eyes in a most uncompromising fashion and is evidently deriving much refreshment from his little fat, red thumb.

"A baby," says Guy, gravely.

"A real live baby," says Lilian, "a real small duck," giving the child's plump cheek a soft pinch over Guy's shoulder. "Don't be frightened, Florence; he don't bite; you may give him a kiss in all safety."

"Thanks," says Florence, drawing her skirts closer round her, as though the very idea has soiled her garments. "I don't care about kissing promiscuous babies. Really, Guy, if you only knew how ridiculous you look, you would spare yourself the humiliation of being so seen by your servants."

"Blame Lilian for it all," returns Guy. "I know I shall blush myself to death if I meet any of the women."

"I think Sir Guy never before looked so interesting," says Miss Chesney, who is making frantic play all this time with the baby; but its mood has changed, and now her most energetic efforts are received—not with smiles—but with stolid indifference and unblinking contempt by the young gentleman in arms.

"I cannot say I agree with you," Miss Beauchamp says, with much subdued scorn, "and I do not think it is kind to place any one in a false position."

She lets a little disdainful angry glance fall upon Lilian,—who unfortunately does not profit by it, as she does not see it,—and sweeps up the stairs to her aunt's apartments, while Guy (who is not to be sneered out of his undertaking) stalks on majestically to the kitchen, followed by Lilian, and never pauses until he places the chubby little rogue he carries in its mother's arms,—who eventually turns out to be the laundress.

"I am not a judge," he says to this young woman, who is curtsying profusely and is actually consumed with pride, "but Miss Chesney has declared your son to be the loveliest child in the world, and I always agree with Miss Chesney,—for reasons of my own."

"Oh, thank you, Sir Guy; I'm sure I'm much obliged to you, Miss Chesney," says the laundress, turning the color of a full-blown peony, through excitement.

"What is his name?" asks Lilian, giving the boy a last fond poke with her pretty slender finger.

"Abiram, miss," replies the mother, which name much displeases Lilian, who would have liked to hear he was called Alaric, or Lancelot, or any other poetical appellation suitable for the most beautiful child in the world.

"A very charming name," says Guy, gravely; and, having squeezed a half-sovereign into the little fellow's fat hand, he and Lilian go through the passages into the open air.

"Guardy," says Lilian, "what is a 'promiscuous baby'?"

"I wish I knew," replies he: "I confess it has been puzzling me ever since. We must ask Florence when we go in."

Here they both laugh a little, and stroll on for a time in silence. At length, being prompted thereto by her evil genius, Lilian says:

"Tell me, who is the Heskett you and auntie were talking about just now?"

"A boy who lives down in the hollow beneath Leigh's farm,—a dark boy we met one day at the end of the lawn; you remember him?"

"A lad with great black eyes and a handsome face with just a little soupÇon of wickedness about him? of course I do. Oh! I like that boy. You must forgive him, Sir Guy, or I shall be unhappy forever."

"Do you know him?"

"Yes, well. And his mother, too: she is a dear old thing, and but that she has an undeniable penchant for tobacco, would be perfection. Guardy, you must forgive him."

"My dear child, I can't."

"Not when I ask you?" in a tone of purest astonishment.

"Not even then. Ask me something else,—in fact, anything,—and I will grant it, but not this."

"I want nothing else," coldly. "I have set my heart on freeing this poor boy and you refuse me: and it is my first request."

"It is always your first request, is it not?" he says, smiling a rather troubled smile. "Yesterday——"

"Oh, don't remind me of what I may have said yesterday," interrupts Miss Chesney, impatiently: "think of to-day! I ask you to forgive Heskett—for my sake."

"You should try to understand all that would entail," speaking the more sternly in that it makes him positively wretched to say her nay: "if I were to forgive Heskett this time, I should have every second man on my estate a poacher."

"On the contrary, I believe you would make them all your devoted slaves.

"I have said I would not, and even you can hardly think it right that I should break my word."

"No, you would rather break his mother's heart!" By this time the spoiled Lilian has quite made up her mind to have her own way, and is ready to try any means to gain it. "Your word!" she says disdainfully: "if you are going to emulate the Medes and Persians, of course there is no use of my arguing with you. You ought to be an ancient Roman; even that detestable Brutus might be considered soft-hearted when compared with you."

"Sneering, Lilian, is a habit that should be confined to those old in sorrow or worldly wisdom: it sits badly on such lips as yours."

"Then why compel me to indulge in it? Give me my way in this one instance, and I will be good, and will probably never sneer again."

"I cannot."

"Then don't!" naughtily, made exceeding wroth by (what she is pleased to term) his obstinacy. "I was foolish in thinking I could influence you in any way. Had Florence asked you, you would have said yes instantly."

"Florence would never have asked me to do anything so unreasonable."

"Of course not! Florence never does wrong in your eyes. It is a pity every one else does not regard her as favorably as you do."

"I think every one thinks very highly of her," angrily.

"Do you? It probably pleases you to think so. I, for one, do not."

"There is a certain class of people whose likes and dislikes cannot possibly be accounted for," says Guy, somewhat bitterly. "I think you would find a difficulty in explaining to me your vehement antipathy toward Miss Beauchamp. You should remember 'unfounded prejudices bear no weight.'"

"That sounds like one of Miss Beauchamp's own trite remarks," says Lilian, with a disagreeable laugh. "Did you learn it from her?"

To this Chetwoode makes no reply, and Lilian, carried away by resentment at his open support of Florence, and by his determination not to accede to her request about young Heskett, says, passionately:

"Why should you lose your temper about it?" (it is her own temper that has gone astray). "It is all not worth a quarrel. Any one may plainly see how hateful I am to you. In a thousand ways you show me how badly you think of me. You are a petty tyrant. If I could leave your house, where I feel myself unwelcome,—at least as far as you are concerned,—I would gladly do so."

Here she stops, more from want of breath than eloquence.

"Be silent," says Guy, turning to confront her, and thereby showing a face as pale as hers is flushed with childish rage and bafflement. "How dare you speak like that!" Then, changing his tone, he says quietly, "You are wrong; you altogether mistake. I am no tyrant; I do what is just according to my own conscience. No man can do more. As to what else you may have said, it is impossible you can feel yourself unwelcome in my house. I do not believe you feel it."

"Thank you," still defiant, though in truth she is a little frightened by his manner: "that is as much as to say I am telling a lie, but I do believe it all the same. Every day you thwart and disappoint me in one way or another, and you know it."

"I do not, indeed. It distresses me much that you should say so. So much, that against my better judgment I give in to you in this matter of Heskett, if only to prove to you how you wrong me when you say I wish to thwart you. Heskett is pardoned."

So saying, he turns from her abruptly and half contemptuously, and, striking across the grass, makes for a path that leads indirectly to the stables.

When he has gone some yards it occurs to Miss Chesney that she feels decidedly small. She has gained her point, it is true, but in a sorry fashion, and one that leaves her discontented with her success. She feels that had he done rightly he would have refused to bandy words with her at all upon the subject, and he would not have pardoned the reprehensible Heskett; something in his manner, too, which she chooses to think domineering, renders her angry still, together with a vague, uneasy consciousness that he has treated her throughout as a child and given in to her merely because it is a simpler matter to surrender one's judgment than to argue with foolish youth.

This last thought is intolerable. A child, indeed! She will teach him she is no child, and that women may have sense although they have not reached the admirable age of six-and-twenty.

Without further thought she runs after him, and, overtaking him just as he turns the corner, says, very imperiously, with a view to sustaining her dignity:

"Sir Guy, wait: I want to speak to you."

"Well," he says, stopping dead short, and answering her in his iciest tones. He barely looks at her; his eyes, having once met hers, wander away again without an instant's lingering, as though they had seen nothing worthy of attention. This plain ignoring of her charms is bitter to Miss Chesney.

"I do not want you to forgive that boy against your will," she says, haughtily. "Take back your promise."

"Impossible! You have made me break my word to myself; nothing shall induce me to break my word to you. Besides, it would be unfair to Heskett. If I were to dismiss him now I should feel as though I had wronged him."

"But I will not have his pardon so."

"What!"—scornfully,—"after having expended ten minutes in hurling at me some of the severest eloquence it has ever been my fate to listen to, all to gain this Heskett's pardon, you would now have it rescinded! Am I to understand so much?"

"No; but I hate ungraciousness."

"So do I,"—meaningly,—"even more than I hate abuse."

"Did I abuse you?"

"I leave you to answer that question."

"I certainly," with some hesitation, "said you were a tyrant."

"You did," calmly.

"And that——"

"Do not let us go over such distasteful ground again," interrupts he, impatiently: "you said all you could say,—and you gained your object. Does not even that satisfy you?"

"I wish I had never interested myself in the matter," she says, angrily, vexed with herself, and with him, and with everything.

"Perhaps your wisdom would have lain in that direction," returns he, coolly. "But as you did interest yourself, and as victory lies with you, you should be the one to rejoice."

"Well, I don't," she says impulsively. And then she looks at him in a half-defiant, half-penitent, wholly charming way, letting her large soft eyes speak for her, as they rest full upon his face. There is something in her fresh young beauty almost irresistible. Guy, with an angry sigh, acknowledges its power, and going nearer to her, takes both her clasped hands in his.

"What a bad-tempered little girl you are!" he says, in a jesting tone, that is still full of the keenest reproach. "Am I as bad as Brutus and all those terrible Medes and Persians? I confess you made me tremble when you showered upon me all those awful comparisons."

"No, no, I was wrong," she says, hastily, twining her small fingers closely round his; then very softly, "You are always forgiving me, are you not? But yet—tell me, Guardy—are you not really glad you have pardoned that poor Heskett? I cannot be pleased about it myself so long as I think I have only wrung your promise from you against your will. Say you are glad, if only to make me happy."

"I would do anything to make you happy,—anything," he says, in a strange tone, reading anxiously her lovely riante face, that shows no faintest trace of such tenderness as he would fain see there; then, altering his voice with an effort, "Yes, I believe I am glad," he says, with a short laugh: "your intercession has removed a hateful duty from my shoulders."

"Where is the boy? Is he locked up, or confined anywhere?"

"Nowhere. I never incarcerate my victims," with a slight trace of bitterness still in his manner. "He is free as air, in all human probability poaching at this present moment."

"But if he knows there is punishment in store for him, why doesn't he make his escape?"

"You must ask him that, because I cannot answer the question. Perhaps he does not consider me altogether such a fiend as you do, and may think it likely I will show mercy at the last moment."

"Or perhaps," says Lilian, "he has made his escape long ago."

"I don't think so. Indeed, I am almost sure, if you look straight along that field"—pointing in a certain direction—"you will see the young gentleman in question calmly smoking the pipe of peace upon a distant wall."

"It is he," says Lilian, in a low tone, after a careful examination of the youthful smoker. "How little he seems to fear his fate!"

"Yes, just fancy how lightly he views the thought of falling into the clutches of a monster!" remarks Chetwoode, with a mocking smile.

"I think you are a little hard on me," says Lilian, reproachfully.

"Am I?" carelessly preparing to leave her. "If you see that promising protÉgÉ of yours, Lilian, you can tell him from me that he is quite at liberty to carry on his nightly games as soon as he pleases. You have no idea what a solace that news will be to him; only, if you have any regard for him, advise him not to be caught again."

So saying, he leaves her and continues his interrupted march to the stables.

When Miss Chesney has spent a moment or two inveighing silently against the hardness and uncharitableness of men in general and Sir Guy Chetwoode in particular, she accepts the situation, and presently starts boldly for the hollow in which lies the modest homestead of the venerable Mrs. Heskett.

The unconscious cause of the battle royal that has just taken place has evidently finished his pipe and lounged away through the woods, as he is nowhere to be seen. And Miss Chesney makes up her mind, with a view to killing the time that must elapse before dinner, to go straight to his mother's cottage, and, by proclaiming Sir Guy's leniency, restore peace to the bosom of that ancient dame.

And as she walks she muses on all that has passed between herself and her guardian during the last half-hour. After all, what did she say that was so very bad?

She had certainly compared him to Brutus, but what of that? Brutus in his day was evidently a shining light among his people, and, according to the immortal Pinnock, an ornament to his sex. Suppose he did condemn his only son to death, what did that signify in a land where the deed was looked upon as meritorious? Weak-minded people of the present day might call him an old brute for so doing, but there are two sides to every question, and no doubt the young man was a regular nuisance at home, and much better out of the way.

Then again she had likened him to the Medes and Persians; and why not? Who should say the Medes and Persians were not thoroughly respectable gentlemen, polished and refined? and though in this case again there might be some who would prefer the manners of a decent English gentleman to those of the present Shah, that is no reason why the latter should be regarded so ignominiously.

She has reached this highly satisfactory point in her argument when a body dropping from a tree near her, almost at her feet, startles her rudely from her meditations.

"Dear me!" says Lilian, with much emphasis, and then knows she is face to face with Heskett.

He is a tall lad, brown-skinned as an Italian, with eyes and hair of gypsy dye. As he stands before Lilian now, in spite of his daring nature, he appears thoroughly abashed, and with his eyes lowered, twirls uneasily between his hands the rather greasy article that usually adorns his brow.

"I beg your pardon, miss," he says, slowly, "but might I say a word to you?"

"I am sorry to hear such bad accounts of you, Heskett," says Miss Chesney, in return, with all the airs of a dean and chapter.

"Sir Guy has been telling you, miss?" says the lad, eagerly; "and it is about my trouble I wanted to see you. They say you have great weight with the baronet, miss, and once or twice you spoke kindly to me, and I thought maybe you would say a word for me."

"You are mistaken: I have no influence," says Lilian, coloring faintly. "And besides, Heskett, there would be little use in speaking for you, as you are not to be trusted."

"I am, Miss Chesney, I am indeed, if Sir Guy would only try me again. I don't know what tempted me last night, but I got my lesson then, and never again, I swear, Miss——"

Here a glance at Lilian's face checks further protestations. She is not looking at him; her gaze is concentrated upon the left pocket of his coat, though, indeed, there is little worthy of admiration in the cut of that garment. Following the direction of her eyes, Heskett's fall slowly, until at length they fasten upon the object that has so attracted her.

Sticking up in that luckless left pocket, so as plainly to be seen, is a limp and rather draggled brown wing, the undeniable wing of a young grouse.

"Heskett," says Lilian, severely, "what have you been doing?"

"Nothing, miss," desperately.

"Heskett," still more severely, and with just a touch of scorn in her tone, "speak the truth: what have you got in your pocket?"

"It's just a grouse, then," says the boy, defiantly, producing the bonny brown bird in question.

"And a fat one," supplements Lilian. "Oh, Heskett, when you know the consequences of poaching, how can you do it?"

"'Tis because I do know it,"—recklessly: "it's all up with me this time because the baronet swore he'd punish me next time I was caught, and he never breaks his word. So I thought, miss, I'd have a last fling, whatever came of it."

"But it isn't 'all up' with you," says Lilian. "I have spoken to Sir Guy, and he has promised to give you one more chance. But I cannot speak again, Heskett, and if you still persist in your evil ways I shall have spoken in vain."

"You spoke for me?" exclaims he, incredulously.

"Yes. But I fear I have done no good."

The boy's eyes seek the ground.

"I didn't think the likes of you would care to say a kind word for such as me,—and without the asking," he says, huskily. "Look here, Miss Chesney, if it will please you, I swear I will never again snare a bird."

"Oh, Heskett, will you promise really?" returns Lilian, charmed at her success, "and can I trust you? You know you gave your word before to Sir Guy."

"But not to you, miss. Yes, I will be honest to please you. And indeed, Miss Chesney, when I left home this morning I never meant to kill a thing. I started with a short oak stick in my hand, quite innocent like, and up by the bit of heather yonder this young one ran across my path; I didn't seek it, and may bad luck go with the oak stick, for, before I knew what I meant, it flew from me, and a second later the bird lay dead as mutton. Not a stir in it. I was always a fine shot, miss, with a stick or a stone," says the accomplished Heskett, regarding his grouse with much pride. "Will you have it, miss?" he says then, holding it out to her.

"No, thank you," loftily: "I am not a receiver of stolen goods; and it is stolen, remember that."

"I suppose so, miss. Well, as I said before, I will be honest now to please you, you have been so good to me."

"You should try to please some One higher," says Lilian, with a solemnity that in her is sweeter than it is comical.

"Nay, then, miss,—to please you first, if I may."

"Tell me," says Lilian, shifting ground as she finds it untenable, "why do you never come to church?"

"It's so mighty dull, miss."

"You shouldn't find it so. Come and say your prayers, and afterward you may find it easier to be good. You should not call church dull," with a little reproving shake of the head.

"Do you never find it stupid, Miss Chesney?" asks Heskett, with all diffidence.

Lilian pauses. This is a home-thrust, and her innate honesty prevents the reply that trembles on her lips. She does find it very stupid now and then.

"Sometimes," she says, with hesitation, "when Mr. Austen is preaching I cannot think it quite as interesting as it might be: still——"

"Oh, as for him," says Heskett, with a grin, "he ought to be shot, miss, begging your pardon, that's what he ought. I never see him I don't wish he was a rabbit snug in one o' my snares as was never known to fail. Wouldn't I wring his neck when I caught him! maybe not! comin' around with his canting talk, as though he was the archbishop hisself."

"How dare you speak of your clergyman in such a way?" says Lilian, shocked; "you are a bad, bad boy, and I am very angry with you."

"Don't then, Miss Chesney," piteously; "I ask your pardon humbly, and I'll never again speak of Mr. Austen if you don't like. But he do aggravate awful, miss, and frightens the life out o' mother, because she do smoke a bit of an evenin', and it's all the comfort she have, poor soul. There's the Methody parson below, even he's a better sort, though he do snivel horrid. But I'll do anything to please you, miss, an' I'll come to church next Sunday."

"Well, mind you do," says Lilian, dismissing him with a gracious nod.

So Heskett departs, much exercised in mind, and in the lowest spirits, being full of vague doubts, yet with a keen consciousness that by his promise to Miss Chesney he has forfeited his dearest joy, and that from him the glory of life has departed. No more poaching, no more snaring, no more midnight excursions fraught with delicious danger: how is he to get on in future, with nothing to murder but time?

Meanwhile Miss Chesney, coming home flushed with victory, encounters Florence in the garden wandering gracefully among the flowers, armed as usual with the huge umbrella, the guardian of her dear complexion.

"You have been for a walk?" she asks Lilian, with astonishing bonhommie. "I hope it was a pleasant one."

"Very, thank you."

"Then you were not alone. Solitary walks are never pleasant."

"Nevertheless, mine was solitary."

"Then, Guy did not go with you?" somewhat hastily.

"No. He found he had something to do in the stables," Lilian answers, shortly.

Miss Beauchamp laughs a low, soft, irritative laugh.

"How stupid Guy is!" she says. "I wonder it never occurs to him to invent a new excuse: whenever he wants to avoid doing anything unpleasant to him, he has always some pressing business connected with the stables to take him away. Have you noticed it?"

"I cannot say I have. But then I have not made a point of studying his eccentricities. Now you have told me this one, I dare say I shall remark it in future. You see," with a slight smile, "I hold myself in such good esteem that it never occurred to me others might find my company disagreeable."

"Nor do they, I am sure,"—politely,—"but Guy is so peculiar, at times positively odd."

"You amaze me more and more every moment. I have always considered him quite a rational being,—not in the least madder than the rest of us. I do hope the new moon will have no effect upon him."

"Ah! you jest," languidly. "But Guy does hold strange opinions, especially about women. No one, I think, quite understands him but me. We have always been so—fond of each other, he and I."

"Yes? Quite like brother and sister, I suppose? It is only natural."

"Oh, no" emphatically, her voice taking a soft intonation full of sentimental meaning, "not in the very least like brother and sister."

"Like what then?" asks Lilian, somewhat sharply for her.

"How downright you are!" with a little forced laugh, and a modest drooping of her white lids; "I mean, I think a brother and sister are hardly so necessary to each other's happiness as—as we are to each other, and have been for years. To me, Chetwoode would not be Chetwoode without Guy, and I fancy—I am sure—it would scarcely be home to Guy without me." This with a quiet conviction not to be shaken. "Perhaps you can see what I mean? though, indeed," with a smile, "I hardly know myself what it is I do mean."

"Ah!" says Lilian, a world of meaning in her tone.

"The only fault I find with him," goes on Florence, in the low, prettily modulated tone she always adopts, "is, that he is rather a flirt. I believe he cannot help it; it is second nature to him now. He adores pretty women, and at times his manner to them is rather—er—caressing. I tell him it is dangerous. Not perhaps that it makes much difference nowadays, does it? when women have learned to value attentions exactly at what they are worth. For my own part, I have little sympathy with those foolish Ariadnes who spend their lives bemoaning the loss of their false lovers. Don't you agree with me?"

"Entirely. Utterly," says Lilian, in a curious tone that might be translated any way. "But I cannot help thinking Fortune very hard on the poor Ariadnes. Is that the dressing-bell? How late it has grown! I am afraid we must go in if we wish to be in time for dinner."

Miss Beauchamp being possessed with the same fear, they enter the house together, apparently in perfect amity with each other, and part in peace at their chamber doors. Lilian even bestows a little smile upon her companion as she closes hers, but it quickly changes into an unmistakable little frown as the lock is turned. A shade falls across her face, an impatient pucker settles comfortably upon her forehead, as though it means to spend some time there.

"What a hateful girl that is!" Lilian says to herself, flinging her hat with a good deal of vehemence on to the bed (where it makes one desperate effort to range itself and then rolls over to the floor at the other side), and turning two lovely wrathful eyes toward the door, as though the object of her anger were still in sight. "Downright detestable! and quite an old maid; not a doubt of it. Women close on thirty are always so spiteful!"

Here she picks up the unoffending hat, and almost unconsciously straightens a damaged bow while her thought still runs on passionately.

So Sir Guy "adores pretty women." By the bye, it was a marvelous concession on Miss Beauchamp's part to acknowledge her as such, for without doubt all that kindly warning was meant for her.

Going up to her glass, Lilian runs her fingers through the rippling masses of her fair hair, and pinches her soft cheeks cruelly until the red blood rushes upward to defend them, after which, she tells herself, even Florence could scarcely have said otherwise.

And does Miss Beauchamp think herself a "pretty woman?" and does Sir Guy "adore her?" She said he was a flirt. But is he? Cyril is decidedly given that way, and some faults run in families. Now she remembers certain lingering glances, tender tones, and soft innuendoes meant for her alone, that might be placed to the account of her guardian. She smiles somewhat contemptuously as she recalls them. Were all these but parts of his "caressing" manner? Pah! what a sickening word it is.

She blushes hotly, until for a full minute she resembles the heart of a red, red rose. And for that minute she positively hates her guardian. Does he imagine that she—she—is such a baby as to be flattered by the attentions of any man, especially by one who is the lover of another woman? for has not Florence both in words and manner almost claimed him as her own? Oh, it is too abominable! And——

But never mind, wait, and when she has the opportunity, won't she show him, that's all?

What she is to show him, or how, does not transpire. But this awful threat, this carefully disguised and therefore sinister menace, is evidently one of weight, because it adds yet a deeper crimson to Miss Chesney's cheeks, and brings to life a fire within her eyes, that gleams and sparkles there unrebuked.

Then it quietly dies, and nurse entering finds her little mistress again calm, but unusually taciturn, and strangely forgetful of her teasing powers.