nd was slow to reply. Mary had not made a very strong
impression upon him. Dazzled by her sister's pure and classical beauty,
he had no eyes for Mary's homelier charms. She seemed to him a frank,
affectionate girl, not too well-mannered; and that was all he thought of
her.

'I'm afraid Lady Mary does not like me,' he said, after his shot, which
gave him time for reflection.

'Oh, Molly is rather _farouche_ in her manners; never would train fine,
don't you know. Her ladyship lectured till she was tired, and now Mary
runs wild, and I suppose will be left at grass till six months before
her presentation, and then they'll put her on the pillar-reins a bit to
give her a better mouth. Good shot, by Jove!'

John Hammond was used to his lordship's style of conversation, and
understood his friend at all times. Maulevrier was not an intellectual
companion, and the distance was wide between the two men; but his
lordship's gaiety, good-nature, and acuteness made amends for all
shortcomings in culture. And then Mr. Hammond may have been one of those
good Conservatives who do not expect very much intellectual power in an
hereditary legislator.

CHAPTER VII.

IN THE SUMMER MORNING.

John Hammond loved the wild freshness of morning, and was always eager
to explore a new locality; so he was up at five o'clock next morning,
and out of doors before six. He left the sophisticated beauty of the
Fellside gardens below him, and climbed higher and higher up the Fell,
till he was able to command a bird's-eye view of the lake and village,
and just under his feet, as it were, Lady Maulevrier's favourite abode.
He was provided with a landscape glass which he always carried in his
rambles, and with the aid of this he could see every stone of the
building.

The house, added to at her ladyship's pleasure, and without regard to
cost, covered a considerable extent of ground. The new part consisted of
a straight range of about a hundred and twenty feet, facing the lake,
and commandingly placed on the crest of a steepish slope; the old
buildings, at right angles with the new, made a quadrangle, the third
and fourth sides of which were formed by the dead walls of servants'
rooms and coach-houses, which had no windows upon this inner enclosed
side. The old buildings were low and irregular, one portion of the roof
thatched, another tiled. In the quadrangle there was an old-fashioned
garden, with geometrical flower-beds, a yew tree hedge, an