l to July, nevertheless. He was fresh, just at
present, from a good scenting season in Leicestershire, followed by a
sojourn on the Tweed, in which classical river he had improved many
shining hours, wading waist-deep under a twenty-foot rod, any number
of yards of line, and a fly of various hues, as gaudy, and but little
smaller than a cock pheasant. Now he had been a week in town, during
which period he met Miss Bruce at least once every day. This constant
intercourse is to be explained in a few words.

Mrs. Stanmore, the Aunt Agatha with whom Maud expressed herself so
unwilling to reside, was a sister of the late Mr. Bruce. She had
married a widower with one son, that widower being old Mr. Stanmore,
defunct, that son being Dick. Mrs. Stanmore, in the enjoyment of
a large jointure (which rather impoverished her step-son), though
arbitrary and unpleasant, was a woman of generous instincts, so
offered Maud a home the moment she learned her niece's double
bereavement; which home, for many reasons, heiress or no heiress, Miss
Bruce felt constrained to accept. Thus it came about that she found
herself walking with Tom Ryfe _en cachette_ in the Square gardens;
and, leaving them, recognised the gentleman whom she was to meet at
luncheon in ten minutes, on whose intellect at least, if not his
heart, she felt pretty sure she had already made an impression.

"I won't show her up," said Dick to his neatest boots, while he
scraped them at his mother's door, "but I _should_ like to know who
that bumptious-looking chap is, and what the h----ll she could have to
say to him in the Square gardens all the same."

Mr. Stanmore's language at the luncheon-table, it is needless to
say, was far less emphatic than that which relieved his feelings in
soliloquy; nor was he to-day quite so talkative as usual. His mother
thought him silent (he always called her "mother," and, to do her
justice, she could not have loved her own son better, nor scolded
him oftener, had she possessed one); Miss Bruce voted him stupid and
sulky. She told him so.

"A merrythought, if you please, and no bread-sauce," said the young
lady, in her calm, imperious manner. "Don't forget I hate bread-sauce,
if you mean to come here often to luncheon; and do _say_ something.
Aunt Agatha can't, no more can I. Recollect we've got a heavy
afternoon before us."

Aunt Agatha always contradicted. "Not heavier than any other
breakfast, Maud," said she severely. "You didn't th