ane. There was nothing to spoil the enjoyment

efore. He was very quiet, and seemed to Jane older than she had ever known him. He had very few lapses into his seven-year-old mood, ev

Garth quie

for several of the duchess's party were due

d Garth, "

tically. "Prithee, Benedict, a

nding, came out from behind it to look up at him and say, so that only h

ing so that he spoke to

afternoon have some

thing w

t THE

hout looking at her: "The re

was more of a musician than she had known, and she enjoyed his clean, masculine touch on the piano, unblurred by slur or pedal; more delicate than her own, where delicacy was required. What her voice was to him

hat she never left a room, without being at once missed by him. His attentions were so unobtrusive and tactful that no one else realised them. They called forth no chaff from friends and no "Hoity-toity! What now?" from the duchess. And yet his devotion seemed always surrounding her. For the first time in her life Jane was made to feel

e thought of love, in the ordinary sense of the word, never entered Jane's mind. Her ignorance in this matter arose, not so much from inexperience, as from too large

pe were inevitable. Middle-aged men-becoming bald and grey; tired of racketing about town; with beautiful old country places and an unfortunate lack of the wherewithal to keep them up-proposed to the Honour

a fellow always to have her at hand to keep him straight and tell him what he ought to do, don't you know? and-er-well, yes-pay his debts, and be a sort of mother-who-doesn't scold k

If the rector became too prosy, she could surreptitiously finish a few notes. He sank into a deep arm-chair close to the writing-table, crossed his somewhat bandy legs one over the other, made the tips of his fingers meet with unctuous accuracy, and intoned the opening sentences of his proposition. Jane, sharpening pencils and sort

. Bilberry," she said. "Is it for a fo

mulously, "you misunderstand me. My

I enjoy a long, quiet walk by myself through the woods. And now I am sure you would like to see my aunt before you go. She is in the aviary, feeding her foreign birds. If you go out by that window and pass along the terrace to your left, you will find the aviary and the duchess. I would suggest the advisability of

w wrathful lines of manly indignation. But when it returned to her in due course from her bankers, it was indorsed P. BILBERRY, in a nea

le being was tenderly, cautiously beginning to surround and envelop her, she did not recognise the reason of her happiness or of his devotion. She considered him the avowed lover of another woman, with whose youth a

couple of days with the Brands. Garth went straight to Shenstone, where he had been asked expressly to