nnis-court, they would renew their childhood's
hours. He taught her to throw a fly for trout, and she initiated him
into the mysteries of answering the calls of birds in the woods.
Mounted on a couple of ponies, they became familiar figures at the
tenants' cottages, and though the spirit of outlawry mellowed with
advancing years, Lady Durwent never saw them start away from the house
without the uneasy feeling that there was more than a chance they would
get into some mischief before they returned.

In the meantime the elder son was bringing credit to his ancestors and
himself. His accent became a thing of perfection, nicely nuanced, and
entirely free of any emphasis or intensity that might rob it of its
placid suggestion of good-breeding. His attitude towards the servants
was one of pleasant dignity, and the tenantry all spoke of Master
Malcolm as a fine young gentleman who would make a worthy ruler of
Roselawn.

Between him and Richard there was little love lost. The elder boy
disapproved of his hoydenish sister, and sought at all times to shame
her tempestuous nature by insistence on decorum in their relations.
Richard, who invariably brought home adverse reports from school, could
find no fault in his colourful sister, and blindly espoused her cause
at all times.

On one occasion, when Malcolm had been more than usually censorious,
Dick challenged him to a fight. They adjourned to the seclusion of a
small plot of grass by a great oak, where the Etonian knocked Dick down
five times in succession, afterwards escorting him to the cook, who
placed raw beefsteak on his eyes.

It was characteristic of the worthy Richard that he bore his brother no
malice whatever for the punishment. He had proposed the fight,
conscious of the fact that he would be soundly beaten, but he was a bit
of a Quixote--and a lady's name was involved.

And no nurse ever tended a wounded hero more tenderly than the little
copper-haired creature of impulse who bathed the battered face of poor
Dick. Wilful and rebellious as she was, there was in Elise a deep well
of love for her brother that no other being could fathom. And it was
not his loyalty alone that had inspired it. Her solitary life had
quickened her perceptive powers, and intuitively she knew that, in the
years before him, her weak-willed, buoyant-natured brother would be
unable to meet the cross-currents of his destiny and maintain a steady
course.

But he thought it was bec