.

At Lady Valleys' words:

"Ah, Babs! My daughter Barbara--Mr. Courtier," he put out his hand,
received within it some gauntleted fingers held out with a smile, and
heard her say:

"Miltoun's gone up to Town, Mother; I was going to motor in to
Bucklandbury with a message he gave me; so I can fetch Granny out from
the station:"

"You had better take Ann, or she'll make our lives a burden; and perhaps
Mr. Courtier would like an airing. Is your knee fit, do you think?"

Glancing at the apparition, Courtier replied:

"It is."

Never since the age of seven had he been able to look on feminine beauty
without a sense of warmth and faint excitement; and seeing now perhaps
the most beautiful girl he had ever beheld, he desired to be with her
wherever she might be going. There was too something very fascinating in
the way she smiled, as if she had a little seen through his sentiments.

"Well then," she said, "we'd better look for Ann."

After short but vigorous search little Ann was found--in the car,
instinct having told her of a forward movement in which it was her
duty to take part. And soon they had started, Ann between them in
that peculiar state of silence to which she became liable when really
interested.

From the Monkland estate, flowered, lawned, and timbered, to the open
moor, was like passing to another world; for no sooner was the last
lodge of the Western drive left behind, than there came into sudden
view the most pagan bit of landscape in all England. In this wild
parliament-house, clouds, rocks, sun, and winds met and consulted. The
'old' men, too, had left their spirits among the great stones, which lay
couched like lions on the hill-tops, under the white clouds, and their
brethren, the hunting buzzard hawks. Here the very rocks were restless,
changing form, and sense, and colour from day to day, as though
worshipping the unexpected, and refusing themselves to law. The winds
too in their passage revolted against their courses, and came tearing
down wherever there were combes or crannies, so that men in their
shelters might still learn the power of the wild gods.

The wonders of this prospect were entirely lost on little Ann, and
somewhat so on Courtier, deeply engaged in reconciling those two alien
principles, courtesy, and the love of looking at a pretty face. He was
wondering too what this girl of twenty, who had the self-possession of
a woman of forty, might be thinking. It was little Ann who b