, and their objective
puzzled her.

"It must be very dull for you here, Miss Heyburn," he remarked to her
one bright morning as they were casting up-stream near one another. They
were standing not far from a rustic bridge in a deep, leafy glen, where
the sunshine penetrated here and there through the canopy of leaves,
beneath which the burn pursued its sinuous course towards the Earn. The
music of the rippling waters over the brown, moss-grown boulders mingled
with the rustle of the leaves above, as now and then the soft wind swept
up the narrow valley. They were treading a carpet of wild-flowers, and
the air was full of the delicious perfume of the summer day. "You must
be very dull, living here so much, and going up to town so very seldom,"
he said.

"Oh dear no!" she laughed. "You are quite mistaken. I really enjoy a
country life. It's so jolly after the confinement and rigorous rules of
school. One is free up here. I can wear my old clothes, and go cycling,
fishing, shooting, curling; in fact, I'm my own mistress. That I
shouldn't be if I lived in London, and had to make calls, walk in the
Park, go shopping, sit out concerts, and all that sort of thing."

"But though you're out, you never go anywhere. Surely that's unusual for
one so active and--well"--he hesitated--"I wonder whether I might be
permitted to say so--so good-looking as you are, Gabrielle."

"Ah!" replied the girl, protesting, but blushing at the same time,
"you're poking fun at me, Mr. Flockart. All I can reply is, first, that
I'm not good-looking; and, secondly, I'm not in the least dull--perhaps
I should be if I hadn't my father's affairs to attend to."

"They seem to take up a lot of your time," he said with pretended
indifference, but, to his annoyance, landed a salmon parr at the same
moment.

"We work together most evenings," was her reply.

The question which he then put as he threw the parr back into the burn
struck her as curious. It was evident that he was endeavouring to learn
from her the nature of her father's correspondence. But she was shrewd
enough to parry all his ingenious cross-questioning. Her father's
secrets were her own.

"Some ill-natured people gossip about Sir Henry," he remarked presently,
as he made another long cast up-stream and allowed the flies to be
carried down to within a few yards from where he stood. "They say that
his source of income is mysterious, and that it is not altogether open
and above-board."