ypool, enlightening the Captain on the state
of affairs as far as he desired.

CHAPTER II.

THE THIRD TIME.

Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,
And you the toast of all the town,
I sighed and said, amang them a',
Ye are not Mary Morison.
BURNS.

Mrs. Frost and Louis were very merry over the result of Lady Conway's
stratagems, and sat up indulging in bright anticipations until so late
an hour, that Louis was compelled to relinquish his purpose of going
home that night, but he persisted in walking to Ormersfield before
breakfast, that he might satisfy himself whether there were any letters.

It was a brisk October morning, the sportsman's gun and whistle
re-echoing from the hill sides; where here and there appeared the dogs
careering along over green turnip-fields or across amber stubble. The
Little Northwold trees, in dark, sober tints of brown and purple, hung
over the grey wall, tinted by hoary lichen; and as Louis entered the
Ormersfield field paths, and plunged into his own Ferny dell, the long
grass and brackens hung over the path, weighed down with silvery dew,
and the large cavernous web of the autumnal spider was all one thick
flake of wet.

If he could not enter the ravine without thankfulness for his past
escape, neither could he forget gratitude to her who had come to his
relief from hopeless agony! He quickened his pace, in the earnest
longing for tidings, which had seized him, even to heart sickness.

It was the reaction of the ardour and excitement that had so long
possessed him. The victory had been gained--he had been obliged to
leave James to work in his own cause, and would be no longer wanted in
the same manner by his cousin. The sense of loneliness, and of the
want of an object, came strongly upon him as he walked through the prim
old solitary garden, and looked up at the dreary windows of the house,
almost reluctant to enter, as long as it was without Mary's own serene
atmosphere of sympathy and good sense, her precious offices of love,
her clear steady eyes, even in babyhood his trustworthy counsellors.

Was it a delusion of fancy, acting on reflections in the glass, that,
as he mounted the steps from the lawn, depicted Mary's figure through
the dining-room windows? Nay, the table was really laid for
breakfast--a female figure was actually standing over the tea-chest.

'A scene from the Vicar of Wakefield deluding me,' decided Louis