He walked slowly to the end of the long path, looking about him in dreamy contentment. The sweet, soft air, the sunshine—just at that quiet hour of the afternoon when the light begins to be golden—the whistling of the blackbirds in the shrubbery, the freshness and beauty of all things, steeped his soul in a new delight. His life of late had been spent in cities, fenced from the beauty of earth by a wilderness of walls, the glory of heaven screened by smoke, the air thick and foul with the breath of men. This placid garden scene was as new to him as if he had come straight from the bottom of a mine.
Presently he stopped, as if struck with a new thought, looked straight before him, and muttered between clenched teeth—
“I shall be a fool if I let it slip from my hand.”
“It” meant Hazlehurst Manor, and the lands and fortune thereto belonging.
He was standing within a few yards of the yew tree hedge, and just at this moment the green arch opposite him became the frame of a living picture, and that a lovely one.
Laura Malcolm stood there, bareheaded, dressed in black, with a basket of flowers upon her arm—Laura, whom he had no idea of meeting in this place.
The western sky was behind her, and she stood, a tall, slim figure in straight, black drapery, against a golden background, like a saint in an early Italian picture, an edge of light upon her chestnut hair making almost an aureole, her face in shadow.
For a few moments she paused, evidently startled at the apparition of a stranger, then recognized the intruder, and came forward and offered him her hand frankly, as if he had been quite a commonplace acquaintance.
“Pray, forgive me for coming in unannounced,” he said, “I had no idea I should find you here. Yet it is natural that you should come sometimes to look at the old gardens.”
“I am living here,” answered Laura, “Didn’t you know?”
“No, indeed. No one informed me of the change in your plans.”
“I am so fond of the dear old house and garden, and the place is so full of associations for me that I was easily induced to stay, when Mr. Clare told me that it would be better for the house. I am a kind of housekeeper in charge of everything.”
“I hope you will stay here all your life,” said Treverton, quickly, and then he coloured crimson, as if he had said something awful.
The same crimson flush mounted almost as quickly to Laura’s pale cheeks and brow. Both stood looking at the ground, embarrassed as a schoolboy and girl, while the blackbirds whistled triumphantly in the shrubbery, and a thrush in the orchard went into ecstacies of melody.
Laura was the first to recover.
“Have you been staying long at Hazlehurst?” she asked, quietly.
“I only came an hour ago. My first visit was to the Manor, though I expected to find it an empty house.”
Another picture now appeared in the green frame—a young lady with a neat little figure, a retroussé nose, and an agreeably vivacious countenance.
“Come here, Celia,” cried Laura, “and let me introduce Mr. Treverton. You have heard your father talk about him. Mr. Treverton, Miss Clare.”
Miss Clare bowed and smiled, and murmured something indefinite. “Poor Edward,” she was thinking all the while, “this Mr. Treverton is awfully good-looking.”
“Awfully” was Miss Clare’s chief laudatory adjective; her superlative form of praise was “quite too awfully,” and when enthusiasm carried her beyond herself she called things “nice.” “Quite too awfully nice,” was her maximum of rapture.
As she rarely left Hazlehurst Vicarage, and knew in all about twenty people, it is something to her credit that she had made herself mistress of the current metropolitan slang.
“I suppose you are staying at the Sampsons?” she said; “Mr. Sampson is always talking of you. ‘My friend Treverton,’ he calls you, but I suppose you won’t mind that. It’s rather trying.”
“I think I can survive even that,” answered John, who felt grateful to this young person for having come to his rescue at a moment when he felt himself curiously embarrassed; “Mr. Sampson has been very kind to me.”
“If you can only manage to endure him he is an awfully good-natured little fellow,” said Miss Clare with her undergraduate air. She modelled her manners and opinions upon those of her brother, and was in most things a feminine copy of the Oxonian. “But how do you contrive to get on with his sister? She is quite too dreadful.”
“I confess that she is a lady whose society does not afford me unqualified delight,” said John, “but I believe she means kindly.”
“Can a person with white eyelashes mean kindly?” enquired Celia, with a philosophical air. “Has not Providence created them like that, as a warning; just as venomous snakes have flat heads.”
“That is treating the matter rather too seriously,” said John, “I don’t admire white eyelashes, but I am not so prejudiced as to consider them an indication of character.”
“Ah,” replied Celia, with a significant air, “you will know better by-and-bye.”
She was only twenty, but she talked to John Treverton with as assured a tone as if she had been ages older than he in wisdom and experience of life.
“How pretty the gardens are at this season,” said Treverton, looking round admiringly, and addressing his remark to Laura.
“Ah, you have only seen them in winter,” she answered, “perhaps you would like to walk round the orchard and shrubberies?”
“I should, very much.”
“And after that we will go indoors and have some tea,” said Celia. “You are fond of tea, of course, Mr. Treverton?”
“I confess that weakness.”
“I am glad to hear it. I hate a man who is not fond of tea. There is that brother of mine appreciates nothing but strong coffee without milk. I’m afraid he’ll come to a bad end.”
“I am glad you think tea-drinking a virtue,” said John,
