ver it, noticed its valuable wood-lots with special approbation, was
delighted with the grand old house and its furniture, and would not be
easy until he had seen all the family silver and heard its history. In
return, he had much to tell of his father, now dead,--the only one of
the Venners, beside themselves, in whose fate his uncle was interested.
With Elsie, he was subdued and almost tender in his manner; with the few
visitors whom they saw, shy and silent,--perhaps a little watchful, if
any young man happened to be among them.

Young fellows placed on their good behavior are apt to get restless and
nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick Venner
had his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed life with.
When the savage passion of his young blood came over him, he would fetch
out the mustang, screaming and kicking as these amiable beasts are wont
to do, strap the Spanish saddle tight to his back, vault into it, and,
after getting away from the village, strike the long spurs into his
sides and whirl away in a wild gallop, until the black horse was flecked
with white foam, and the cruel steel points were red with his blood.
When horse and rider were alike fired, he would fling the bridle on his
neck and saunter homeward, always contriving to get to the stable in a
quiet way, and coming into the house as calm as a bishop after a sober
trot on his steady-going cob.

After a few weeks of this kind of life, he began to want some more
fierce excitement. He had tried making downright love to Elsie, with no
great success as yet, in his own opinion. The girl was capricious in her
treatment of him, sometimes scowling and repellent, sometimes familiar,
very often, as she used to be of old, teasing and malicious. All this,
perhaps, made her more interesting to a young man who was tired of easy
conquests. There was a strange fascination in her eyes, too, which at
times was quite irresistible, so that he would feel himself drawn to
her by a power which seemed to take away his will for the moment. It may
have been nothing but the common charm of bright eyes; but he had never
before experienced the same kind of attraction.

Perhaps she was not so very different from what she had been as a child,
after all. At any rate, so it seemed to Dick Venner, who, as was said
before, had tried making love to her. They were sitting alone in the
study one day; Elsie had round her neck that somewhat peculiar or