d a wondrous face.

'Do you like my name, Captain Luscombe?' she asked.

'It is one of the most musical I know,' I replied.

'I don't like it,' she laughed. 'You see, in a way it gives me such a
lot to live up to. I suppose dad was reading Blackmore's great novel
when I was born, and so, although all the family protested, he insisted
on my being called Lorna. But I'm not a bit like her. She was gentle,
and winsome, and beautiful, and I am not a bit gentle, I am not a bit
winsome, and I am as ugly as sin,--my brothers all tell me so.
Besides, in spite of the people who talk so much about Lorna Doone, I
think she was insipid,--a sort of wax doll.'

Just then we heard the tooting of a motor horn, and turning, saw a car
approaching the house.

'There's George St. Mabyn,' cried Sir Roger. 'You're just in time,
George,--I was wondering if you would be in time for our early dinner.'

Immediately afterwards, I was introduced to a young fellow about
twenty-eight years of age, who struck me as a remarkably good specimen
of the English squire class. He had, as I was afterwards told,
conducted himself with great bravery in Belgium and France, and had
been mentioned in the dispatches. I quickly saw that Sir Roger
Granville had been right when he said that George St. Mabyn was deeply
in love with Norah Blackwater. In fact, he took no trouble to hide the
fact. He flushed like a boy as he approached her, and then, as I
thought, his face looked pained as he noticed her cold greeting. They
were evidently well known to each other, however, as he called her by
her Christian name, and assumed the attitude of an old friend.

I did not think Lorna Bolivick liked him. Her greeting was cordial
enough, and yet I thought I detected a certain reserve; but of course
it might be only my fancy. In any case, they were nothing to me. I
was simply a bird of passage, and would, in all probability, go away on
the morrow, never to see them again.

During the informal and somewhat hurried evening meal which had been
prepared, I found myself much interested in the young squire. He had a
frank, boyish manner which charmed me, and in spite of his being still
somewhat of an invalid, his fresh, open-air way of looking at things
was very pleasant.

'By the way, Luscombe,' said Sir Roger, as the ladies rushed away to
their rooms to prepare for their motor drive, 'tell St. Mabyn about
that fellow we were talking of to-day; he'll be intereste