, and have been ready to
subscribe to help her to a more comfortable mode of traveling; but
in Lady Arthur's case of course there was nothing to be done but to
wonder at her eccentricity.

But her ladyship knew what she was about. The sleep as well as the
food of the laboring man is sweet, and if nobility likes to labor, it
will partake of the poor man's blessing. The party arrived back among
the luxurious appointments of Garscube Hall (which were apt to pall on
them at times) legitimately and bodily _tired_, and that in itself
was a sensation worth working for. They had braved difficulty and
discomfort, and not for a nonsensical and fruitless end, either: it
can never be fruitless or nonsensical to get face to face with Nature
in any of her moods. The ice-locked streams, the driven snow, the
sleep of vegetation, a burst of sunshine over the snow, the sough of
the winter wind, Earth waiting to feel the breath of spring on her
face to waken up in youth and beauty again, like the sleeping princess
at the touch of the young prince,--all these are things richly to
be enjoyed, especially by strong, healthy people: let chilly and
shivering mortals sing about cozy fires and drawn curtains if they
like. Besides, Miss Adamson had the eye of an artist, upon which
nothing, be it what it may, is thrown away.

But an expedition to a hill with "rings" undertaken on a long
midsummer day looked fully more enjoyable to the common mind: John,
and even the footman approved of that, and another individual, who
had become a frequent visitor at the hall, approved of it very highly
indeed, and joined such a party as often as he could.

This was George Eildon, the only son of a brother of the late Lord
Arthur.

Now comes the tug--well, not of war, certainly, but, to change the
figure--now comes the cloud no bigger than a man's hand which is to
obscure the quiet sunshine of the regular and exemplary life of these
three ladies.

Having been eight years at Garscube Hall, as a matter of necessity
and in the ordinary course of Nature, Alice Garscube had grown up to
womanhood. With accustomed eccentricity, Lady Arthur entirely
ignored this. As for bringing her "out," as the phrase is, she had
no intention of it, considering that one of the follies of life: Lady
Arthur was always a law to herself. Alice was a shy, amiable girl, who
loved her guardian fervently (her ladyship had the knack of gaining
love, and also of gaining the opposite in pre