r at hand, the air seemed
clear and mellow; there was no November chill. It was a brown world,
however, through which the two walked; life and freshness all gone from
vegetation; the leaves in most cases fallen from the trees, and where
they still hung looking as sear and withered as frost and decay could
make them.

"Do you abhor _all_ compliments?" said Mr. Carlisle, breaking a silence
that for some time had been broken only by the quick ring of their
footsteps upon the ground.

"No, sir."

"That is frank; yet I am half afraid to present the one which is on my
lips."

"Perhaps it is not worth while," said Eleanor, with a gleam of a smile
which was very alluring. "You are going to tell me, possibly, that I am
a good walker."

"I do not know why I should let you silence me. No, I was not going to
tell you that you are a good walker; you know it already. The
compliment of beauty, that you scorned, was also perhaps no news to
you. What I admire in you now, is something you do not know you
have--and I do not mean you shall, by my means."

Eleanor's glance of amused curiosity, rewarded him.

"Are you expecting now, that I shall ask for it?"

"No; it would not be like you. You do not ask me for anything--that you
can help, Eleanor. I shall have to make myself cunning in inventing
situations of need that will drive you to it. It is pleasanter to me
than you can imagine, to have your eyes seek mine with a request in
them."

Eleanor coloured.

"There are the fieldfares!" she exclaimed presently.

"What is there melancholy in that?" said Mr. Carlisle laughingly.

"Nothing. Why?"

"You made the announcement as if you found it so."

"I was thinking of the time I saw the fieldfares last,--when they were
gathering together preparing for their taking flight; and now here they
are back again! It seems so little while--and yet it seems a long while
too. The summer has gone."

"I am glad it has!" said Mr. Carlisle. "And I am glad Autumn has had
the discretion to follow it. I make my bow to the fieldfares."

"You will not expect me to echo that," said Eleanor.

"No. Not now. I will make you do it by and by."

He thought a good deal of his power, Eleanor said to herself as she
glanced at him; and sighed as she remembered that she did so too. She
was afraid to say anything more. It had not been so pleasant a summer
to her that she would have wished to live it over again; yet was she
very sorry to know it gone, for