nd,
feeling that there must be a conspiracy to rob her of her proud
independence, since not a soul could be won to spare her from taking some
energetic step, if she would be useful to him she loved.

Colonel Halkett was one of the guests at Steynham who knew and respected
her, and he paid her a visit and alluded to Nevil's candidature,
apparently not thinking much the worse of him. 'We can't allow him to
succeed,' he said, and looked for a smiling approval of such natural
opposition, which Rosamund gave him readily after he had expressed the
hope that Nevil Beauchamp would take advantage of his proximity to Mount
Laurels during the contest to try the hospitality of the house. 'He won't
mind meeting his uncle?' The colonel's eyes twinkled. 'My daughter has
engaged Mr. Romfrey and Captain Baskelett to come to us when they have
shot Holdesbury.'

And Captain Baskelett! thought Rosamund; her jealousy whispering that the
mention of his name close upon Cecilia Halkett's might have a nuptial
signification.

She was a witness from her window--a prisoner's window, her 'eager heart
could have termed it--of a remarkable ostentation of cordiality between
the colonel and Cecil, in the presence of Mr. Romfrey. Was it his humour
to conspire to hand Miss Halkett to Cecil, and then to show Nevil the
prize he had forfeited by his folly? The three were on the lawn a little
before Colonel Halkett's departure. The colonel's arm was linked with
Cecil's while they conversed. Presently the latter received his
afternoon's letters, and a newspaper. He soon had the paper out at a
square stretch, and sprightly information for the other two was visible
in his crowing throat. Mr. Romfrey raised the gun from his shoulder-pad,
and grounded it. Colonel Halkett wished to peruse the matter with his own
eyes, but Cecil could not permit it; he must read it aloud for them, and
he suited his action to his sentences. Had Rosamund been accustomed to
leading articles which are the composition of men of an imposing
vocabulary, she would have recognized and as good as read one in Cecil's
gestures as he tilted his lofty stature forward and back, marking his
commas and semicolons with flapping of his elbows, and all but doubling
his body at his periods. Mr. Romfrey had enough of it half-way down the
column; his head went sharply to left and right. Cecil's peculiar foppish
slicing down of his hand pictured him protesting that there was more and
finer of the inimi