out a
bit. Help me down, someone!"

Half a dozen hands were extended, but it was on Lamont's that hers
rested as she tripped down the cranky, wobbly steps, knocked up out of
old boxes.

"You coming, Lucy? No? Too hot? Oh well."

Lamont was obviously the favoured one to-day, decided the others,
observing how decidedly, though without appearing to do so, she took
possession of him; wherefore they refrained from making an escort,
except Ancram, whom she promptly cold-shouldered in such wise that even
he was not proof against it, and finally dropped off, wondering what on
earth any girl could see in a dull disagreeable dog like Lamont, who
hadn't three words to say for himself.

"Will you do something for me if I ask you, Mr Lamont?" said Clare, as
they found themselves a little apart from the rest, who were watching
some high jumping.

"Certainly I will, Miss Vidal--er, that is--if I can."

Really he was in good sooth doing his best to deserve Ancram's verdict.
That sweet bright face, looking up at him in a way that most of those
present would have given something to occupy his shoes, surely deserved
an answer less frigid, less halting. Clare herself felt something of
this, and she replied--

"Oh, it's nothing very great. I only want you to enter for the
tent-pegging."

He was relieved. He had contemplated the possibility of her requiring
some service that would necessitate him leaving his post--hence the
hesitation.

"Of course I will. But isn't it too late to enter?"

"No. If it is they'll have to waive the rule. I'm going to put money
on you."

"Oh, don't do that. You'll lose. That fellow Ancram has been riding my
horse to death, the groom at Foster's was quite surprised I should want
to ride him up here now, all things considered. However, there he is.
I'll enter with pleasure, but don't you plunge on me."

"But I will, and you must win. Do you hear, you must win."

"I'll try my best, and can't do more."

"That's right," she said.

Lamont was very much of a misogynist, and was impatient of the sex and
its foibles, but there was something in this girl that disarmed even
him. Her very voice sounded caressing, and the quick lift of the deep
blue eyes--well, it was dangerous, might soon become maddening. She had
appealed to him from the very first, he admitted as much deep down in
his heart of hearts, but there, and there only. Now, amid this sunny,
light-hearted scene, as he looked at