was the fashion at Eldergowan to count him a
hero. Every one, from Mrs. Hatteraick
downward, paid him worship, that sort of homage
which simple appreciative souls give instinctively
to what is at once strong and soft,
commanding and winsome. To his mother he paid
a tender deference, which reminded one that he
had been a little child once, under her control;
with Nell and Polly he was frolicksome as a
schoolboy. Wonderful tales were whispered
of his exploits in war, and his sword was looked
on with a sort of superstitious reverence. Yet
it was easier to imagine him consoling a dying
comrade, or making merry after a victory, than
dealing death and anguish to his fellow-men.
So I thought at least, till one day when I
overheard him swearing terribly in the stable-yard,
and peeped through a curtain of acacia-trees.

The noonday sun was blazing on the
pavement, the monthly roses and wallflowers from
the kitchen-garden flaunting over the wall, a
shaggy white horse drinking at the flowing
water-trough, and a group of men standing near
a bench where a little lad lay moaning. A
cigar was lying burning itself quietly away
upon the stones unobserved. I forgave Major
Hatteraick his oaths, for the boy had been
injured by a kick from a savage groom; but I
saw that his wrath could be fierce. Of the
men, some looked on in awe and some in
admiration as he strode about the yard, frightening
the pigeons from their dovecote on the gable,
making the shaggy horse snuff and stare, and
scattering the clucking hens that were pecking
about the pavement.

An hour afterwards I met this most
passionate and compassionate soldier sauntering in
the garden, lazy and smoking, saying he was
heated, and asking me to talk and refresh him.
So we sat in a shady nook, and talked after a
fashion of our own, of which I had learned the
trick from him. We had each our enthusiasms
of different kinds, which harmonised well, as
contrasting colours mix into the most
satisfactory hues. We were fond of bedecking
common things with our mingled tints, and
to-day we exerted ourselves as much as people
care to do on a hot afternoon in a garden full of
birds and flowers. A liquid song was gurgling
down on our heads from a blackbird's hiding-
place somewhere in the boughs above the high
hedges behind us, a luxurious wilderness of
roses lay before our eyes, and yellow plums
hung within reach of our touch on the mossy
wall by our side. It was all very sweet and
good. I had some lace-work in my fingers,
but through deep content my hands lay idle in
my lap. I had come to be so used to these
long talks with Mark Hatteraick that it seemed
the most natural thing in the world to hear his
voice going on at my side. I had ceased to
wonder at the pleasant unembarrassed friendship
that had sprung up between us, though at
first it had surprised me much. Never had I
been so intimate with any gentleman before,
except my father or Luke; and, until the
novelty wore off, it had seemed the oddest
thing in the world to be sitting by the side of
a man and not longing for something to happen
which must immediately remove him or me.

Mark Hatteraick had a book on his knees,
and sometimes, in the pauses of his talk, he
would read aloud passages which seemed but
the translation of all the sweet murmurs that
were going on around us. At times like
these I felt that my own thoughts made new
essays, and were surprised to find that their
inheritance was much wider than they had ever
dreamed of. I felt that I was but an ignorant
thing, brought up in a wilderness, beyond which
there was a fair world in which I too might
live. Listening to the travelled soldier, I heard
the bells chime in distant cathedrals, I saw the
sun rise upon the glaciers.

But that was the day and the hour when
something was said which made a change in me,
warning me that I had better have stayed in my
wilderness than come straying into champaigns
to whose velvet slopes my feet had no errand.
I cannot say what it was. Who would care to
hear repeated the chance changes of a trivial
conversation? Something was said and
something was looked which made the sun seem to
drop out of the sky, and the garden to heave up
and fling its flowers in my face. I did not
know exactly what had been said, but I felt too
well what had been looked. Polly came dancing
up the walk on the instant, and I hastily
returned with her to the house.

I think I have said in the beginning of this
history that I was not very wise in my youth.
It was owing to my want of wisdom that I
did not that day declare my engagement and go
home to the Mill-house. I had an instinctive
feeling that, my secret told, I should not have
been detained at Eldergowan. I do not think
it was wickedness; it was only weakness and
blindness that made me decide on remaining.
After an hour of doubt and confusion, I
persuaded myself that what had startled me had
been only in my own imagination. Nothing had
been said but what was meant in mere kindness.
Major Hatteraick was no fonder of me than
he need be.

Yet I must have been conscious of lurking
danger, for I sat on the corner of my bed for
long after that, rubbing up my diamond ring
with a little bit of my gown, and trying to
convince myself logically that Luke Elphinstone
was a worthier man than Mark Hatteraick.
Now, when I came to think of it, there was
nothing commendable about Mark, except his
smile, which certainly did one good, his
sympathetic good nature, and his eloquence when he
chose to talk. As far as talking went, he had
the best of it; for Luke had no stirring stories
of defeats and victories, camps and watch-fires,
to set quiet blood leaping; and though he was
quite as great a demolisher of other determinations,
he did not nail you to his wish like
Luke, but had a pleasant trick of mixing your
will up with his till you did not know your own
when you saw it. But, coming so far as this
in my reckoning, I found that the balance was
getting all on the wrong side, and I had to
begin again. Luke did not smoke so many