chair, under the cut-leaved hornbeam,
and looked at the garden stretching before her with the fresh,
surprised kind of admiration of one who had never seen it before--as
if it told her something different to-day from what it had in times
past; as indeed it did.

Presently Edgar came down from the Hill. He had not told his people
yet of the double bond which he designed to make between the two
houses. He thought it was only fitting to wait until Sebastian had
returned and he had gained the paternal consent in the orthodox way.
And the false air of secrecy which this temporary reticence gave his
engagement gave it also a false air of romance which exactly suited
his temperament in the matter of love. Perhaps for the woman
destined to be his wife he would have preferred to dispense with
this characteristic of his dealings with those other women, her
predecessors, not destined to be his wives. All the same, it was
delightful, as things were, to come down to Ford House on this sultry
day and sit under the shadow of the hornbeam, with Leam looking her
loveliest by his side, and butterfly-like Fina running in and out in
the joyous way of a lively child fond of movement and not afflicted
with shyness; delightful to feel that he was enacting a little poem
unknown to all the world beside--that he was the magician who had
first wakened this young soul into life and taught it the sweet
suffering of love; and delightful to know that he was king and
supreme, the only man concerned, with not even a father to share, just
yet, his domain.

Edgar, at all times charming, because at all times good-humored and
not inconveniently in earnest, when specially pleased with himself was
one of the most delightful companions to be found. He had seen much,
and he talked pleasantly on what he had seen, whipping up the surface
of things dexterously and not forcing his hearers to digest the
substance. Hence he was never a bore, nor did he disturb the placid
shallows of ignorance by an unwelcome influx of information. He
had just so much of the histrionic element, born of vanity and
self-consciousness, as is compatible with the impassive quietude
prescribed by good-breeding, whereby his manner had a color that was
an excellent substitute for sincerity, and his speech a pictorial
glow that did duty for enthusiasm when he thought fit to simulate
enthusiasm. He had, too, that sensitive tact which seems to feel weak
places as if by instinct; and when he