slightest hesitation.

They moved away together over the daisied turf of the paddock, young
and bright and happy, with the sunlight of the summer morning shining
cloudless over their flowery path.

"And where are we going to, now?" asked Allan. "Into another garden?"

She laughed gayly. "How very odd of you, Mr. Armadale, not to know, when
it all belongs to you! Are you really seeing Thorpe Ambrose this morning
for the first time? How indescribably strange it must feel! No, no;
don't say any more complimentary things to me just yet. You may turn my
head if you do. We haven't got the old lady with us; and I really must
take care of myself. Let me be useful; let me tell you all about your
own grounds. We are going out at that little gate, across one of the
drives in the park, and then over the rustic bridge, and then round
the corner of the plantation--where do you think? To where I live, Mr.
Armadale; to the lovely little cottage that you have let to papa. Oh, if
you only knew how lucky we thought ourselves to get it!"

She paused, looked up at her companion, and stopped another compliment
on the incorrigible Allan's lips.

"I'll drop your arm," she said coquettishly, "if you do! We _were_ lucky
to get the cottage, Mr. Armadale. Papa said he felt under an obligation
to you for letting it, the day we got in. And _I_ said I felt under an
obligation, no longer ago than last week."

"You, Miss Milroy!" exclaimed Allan.

"Yes. It may surprise you to hear it; but if you hadn't let the cottage
to papa, I believe I should have suffered the indignity and misery of
being sent to school."

Allan's memory reverted to the half-crown that he had spun on the
cabin-table of the yacht, at Castletown. "If she only knew that I had
tossed up for it!" he thought, guiltily.

"I dare say you don't understand why I should feel such a horror of
going to school," pursued Miss Milroy, misinterpreting the momentary
silence on her companion's side. "If I had gone to school in early
life--I mean at the age when other girls go--I shouldn't have minded it
now. But I had no such chance at the time. It was the time of mamma's
illness and of papa's unfortunate speculation; and as papa had nobody to
comfort him but me, of course I stayed at home. You needn't laugh; I was
of some use, I can tell you. I helped papa over his trouble, by sitting
on his knee after dinner, and asking him to tell me stories of all the
remarkable people he had known whe