hen forgotten the six or seven weeks I spent under your roof
last autumn? I have not forgotten them. And I know enough of you, Mrs.
Huntingdon, to think that your husband is the most enviable man in the
world, and I should be the next if you would deem me worthy of your
friendship.'

'If you knew more of me, you would not think it, or if you did you would
not say it, and expect me to be flattered by the compliment.'

I stepped backward as I spoke. He saw that I wished the conversation to
end; and immediately taking the hint, he gravely bowed, wished me
good-evening, and turned his horse towards the road. He appeared grieved
and hurt at my unkind reception of his sympathising overtures. I was not
sure that I had done right in speaking so harshly to him; but, at the
time, I had felt irritated--almost insulted by his conduct; it seemed as
if he was presuming upon the absence and neglect of my husband, and
insinuating even more than the truth against him.

Rachel had moved on, during our conversation, to some yards' distance.
He rode up to her, and asked to see the child. He took it carefully into
his arms, looked upon it with an almost paternal smile, and I heard him
say, as I approached,--

'And this, too, he has forsaken!'

He then tenderly kissed it, and restored it to the gratified nurse.

'Are you fond of children, Mr. Hargrave?' said I, a little softened
towards him.

'Not in general,' he replied, 'but that is such a sweet child, and so
like its mother,' he added in a lower tone.

'You are mistaken there; it is its father it resembles.'

'Am I not right, nurse?' said he, appealing to Rachel.

'I think, sir, there's a bit of both,' she replied.

He departed; and Rachel pronounced him a very nice gentleman. I had
still my doubts on the subject.

In the course of the following six weeks I met him several times, but
always, save once, in company with his mother, or his sister, or both.
When I called on them, he always happened to be at home, and, when they
called on me, it was always he that drove them over in the phaeton. His
mother, evidently, was quite delighted with his dutiful attentions and
newly-acquired domestic habits.

The time that I met him alone was on a bright, but not oppressively hot
day, in the beginning of July: I had taken little Arthur into the wood
that skirts the park, and there seated him on the moss-cushioned roots of
an old oak; and, having gathered a handful of bluebells a