se." He really did not know what to say; Miss Pynsent's _naivete_
almost alarmed him.

"Then you are not angry with me?"

How lovely were the eyes that looked so pleadingly into his face! Was
she a coquette? But he could only answer as in duty bound--

"Not angry in the very least, Miss Pynsent."

"I am so glad. Because I want to talk to you about Vanebury one day. But
I must not stop now, for there are all these people to talk to, you
know."

"I may ask you to forgive the stupidity of my mistake, then?" said
Sydney quickly.

"It was not stupid: how could you know who I was?----There, John, I have
been showing Mr. Campion your gloxinias. Don't you think them lovely,
Mr. Campion?"

And she glided away with the sweetest smile, and Sydney, after a few
words with Sir John, took his departure, with a feeling of mingled
gratification and amusement which he found rather pleasant. So she had
not thought him impertinent, after all? She did not seem to have noticed
the compliment that he had tried to pay her, and which he now
acknowledged to himself would have suited for Milly Harrington better
than Sir John Pynsent's sister. Was she really as childlike as she
seemed, or was she a designing coquette?

The question was not a very important one, but it led Sydney to make a
good many visits to Sir John's house during the next few weeks, in order
to determine the answer. Miss Pynsent's character interested him, he
said to himself; and then she wanted to discuss the state of the
working-classes in Vanebury. He did not care very much for the state of
the working-classes, but he liked to hear her talk to him about them. It
was a pity that he sometimes forgot to listen to what she was saying;
but the play of expression on her lovely face was so varied, the lights
and shadows in her beautiful eyes succeeded each other so rapidly, that
he was a little apt to look at her instead of attending to the subject
that she had in hand.

This was quite a new experience to Sydney, and for some time his mind
was so much occupied by it that the season was half over before he
actually faced the facts of the situation, and discovered that if he
wanted to pluck this fair flower, and wear it as his own, Sir John
Pynsent was not the man to say him nay.

BOOK IV.

SORROW.

"Wer nie sein Brod mit Thraenen ass,
Wer nie die kummervollen Naechte
Auf seinen Bette weinend sass,
Er kennt Euch nicht, ihr himmlische Maechte!"