ith a pretty girl----"

"Like the _Julia_ you will have, I suppose," I said. "Very well, I will
be amiable and take it. Mary will make a first-rate _Helen_. Come and
have a game of billiards, will you?"

"Can't," replied the gallant captain. "I promised to go in half an hour
with--with the Aspedens to see some waterfall or ruin, or something, and
the time is up. So, _au revoir, monsieur_."

Many of ours were pressed into the service for the coming theatricals,
and right willingly did we rehearse a most unnecessary number of times.
Many merry hours did we spend at Woodlands, and I sentimentalized away
desperately to Mary Aspeden; but, somehow or other, always had an
uncomfortable suspicion that she was laughing at me. She never seemed
the least impressed by all my gallantries and pretty speeches, which was
peculiarly mortifying to a moustached cornet of twenty, who thought
himself irresistible. I began, too, to get terribly jealous of Tom
Cleaveland, who, by right of his cousinship, arrived at a degree of
intimacy _I_ could not attain.

One morning Fane and I (who were going to dine there that evening), the
Miss Aspedens, and, of course, that Tom Cleaveland, were sitting in the
drawing-room at Woodlands. Fane and Florence were going it at some
opera airs (what passionate emphasis that wicked fellow gave the loving
Italian words as his rich voice rolled them out to her accompaniment!),
the detestable Trinity-man had been discoursing away to Mary on
boat-racing, outriggers, bumping, and Heaven knows what, and I was just
taking the shine out of him with the description of a shipwreck I had
had in the Mediterranean, when Mary, who sat working at her _broderie_,
and provokingly giving just as sweet smiles to the one as to the other,
interrupted me with--

"Goodness, Florie, there is Mr. Mills coming up the avenue. He is my
cousin's admirer and admiration!" she added, mischievously, as the door
opened, and a little man about forty entered.

There was all over him the essence of the country. You saw at once he
had never passed a season in London. His very boots proclaimed he had
never been presented; and we felt almost convulsed with laughter as he
shook hands with us all round, and attempted a most _empresse_ manner
with Florence.

"Beautiful weather we have now," remarked Mrs. Aspeden.

"She is indeed!" answered the little squire, with a gaze of admiration
at Florence.

Fane, who was leaning against the mantelpiece