te to-night, coming home from my lord's, and as
Brithlow Wood is lonesome and dark--"

"That will do, Godsoe!" the young baronet interrupted, haughtily. "You
mean well, I dare say, and I overlook your presumption this time; but
never proffer advice to me again. As for Darkly, he had better keep
out of my way. I'll horsewhip him the first time I see him, and send
him to make acquaintance with the horse-pond afterward."

He vaulted lightly into the saddle as he spoke.

The brawny gamekeeper stood gazing after him as he ambled down the
leafy avenue.

"His father's son," he said; "the proudest gentleman in Devonshire, and
the most headstrong. You'll horsewhip Dick Darkly, Sir Everard! Why,
he could take you with one hand by the waist-band, and lay you low in
the kennel any day he liked! And he'll do it, too!" muttered Godsoe,
turning slowly away. "You won't be warned, and you won't take
precaution, and you won't condescend to be afeard, and you'll come to
grief afore you know it."

The misty autumn twilight lay like a veil of silver blue over the
peaceful English landscape; a cool breeze swept up from the sea over
the golden downs and distant hills, and as Sir Everard rode along
through the village, the cloud left his face, and a tender, dreamy look
came in its place.

"She will be present, of course," he thought. "I wonder if I shall
find her as I left her last? She is not the kind that play fast and
loose, my stately, uplifted Lady Louise. How queenly she looked at the
reception last night in those velvet robes and the Carteret
diamonds!--'queen rose of the rose-bud garden of girls.' She is my
elder by three round years at least, but she is stately as a princess,
and at twenty-five preserves the ripe bloom of eighteen. She is all
that is gracious when we meet, and my mother has set her heart upon the
match. I have half a mind to propose this very night."

She was an earl's daughter, this stately Lady Louise, but so very
impoverished an earl that the young Devonshire baronet, with his
ancient name and his long rent-roll, was a most desirably brilliant
match.

She was down on a visit to her brother, Lord Carteret, and had made a
dead set at Sir Everard Kingsland from the hour she had met him first.
He was on his way to Lord Carteret's now. There was a dinner-party,
and he was an honored guest; and Lady Louise was brilliant, in the
family diamonds and old point lace, once more.

She was in the drawi