r. Lindsay rose with his book in his hand, and withdrew to
his study.

He had not long left the room when Mysie was startled by a loud knock
at the back door, which opened on a lane, leading along the top of the
hill. But she had almost forgotten it again, when the door of the room
opened, and a gentleman entered without any announcement--for Jenny
had never heard of the custom. When she saw him, Mysie started from her
seat, and stood in visible embarrassment. The colour went and came on
her lovely face, and her eyelids grew very heavy. She had never seen the
visitor before: whether he had ever seen her before, I cannot certainly
say. She felt herself trembling in his presence, while he advanced
with perfect composure. He was a man no longer young, but in the full
strength and show of manhood--the Baron of Rothie. Since the time of my
first description of him, he had grown a moustache, which improved his
countenance greatly, by concealing his upper lip with its tusky curves.
On a girl like Mysie, with an imagination so cultivated, and with no
opportunity of comparing its fancies with reality, such a man would make
an instant impression.

'I beg your pardon, Miss--Lindsay, I presume?--for intruding upon you so
abruptly. I expected to see your father--not one of the graces.'

She blushed all the colour of her blood now. The baron was quite
enough like the hero of whom she had just been reading to admit of her
imagination jumbling the two. Her book fell. He lifted it and laid it
on the table. She could not speak even to thank him. Poor Mysie was
scarcely more than sixteen.

'May I wait here till your father is informed of my visit?' he asked.

Her only answer was to drop again upon her low stool.

Now Jenny had left it to Mysie to acquaint her father with the fact of
the baron's presence; but before she had time to think of the necessity
of doing something, he had managed to draw her into conversation. He
was as great a hypocrite as ever walked the earth, although he flattered
himself that he was none, because he never pretended to cultivate
that which he despised--namely, religion. But he was a hypocrite
nevertheless; for the falser he knew himself, the more honour he judged
it to persuade women of his truth.

It is unnecessary to record the slight, graceful, marrowless talk into
which he drew Mysie, and by which he both bewildered and bewitched her.
But at length she rose, admonished by her inborn divinity, to see