o doubt that it is a very fine estate now, and that the
dowager has been the making of it.'

The two young men strolled up to Easedale Tarn before they went back to
Fellside, where Lady Maulevrier received them with a stately
graciousness, and where Lady Lesbia unbent considerably at luncheon, and
condescended to an animated conversation with her brother's friend. It
was such a new thing to have a stranger at the family board, a man whose
information was well abreast with the march of progress, who could talk
eloquently upon every subject which people care to talk about. In this
new and animated society Lesbia seemed like an enchanted princess
suddenly awakened from a spell-bound slumber. Molly looked at her sister
with absolute astonishment. Never had she seen her so bright, so
beautiful--no longer a picture or a statue, but a woman warm with the
glow of life.

'No wonder Mr. Hammond admires her,' thought poor Molly, who was quite
acute enough to see the stranger's keen appreciation of her sister's
charms, and positive indifference towards herself.

There are some things which women find out by instinct, just as the
needle turns towards the magnet. Shut a girl up in a tower till she is
eighteen years old, and on the day of her release introduce her to the
first man her eyes have ever looked upon, and she will know at a glance
whether he admires her.

After luncheon the four young people started for Rydal Mount; with
Fraeulein as chaperon and watch-dog. The girls were both good walkers.
Lady Lesbia even, though she looked like a hot-house flower, had been
trained to active habits, could walk and ride, and play tennis, and
climb a hill as became a mountain-bred damsel. Molly, feeling that her
conversational powers were not appreciated by her brother's friend, took
half a dozen dogs for company, and with three fox-terriers, a little
Yorkshire dog, a colley and an otter-hound, was at no loss for society
on the road, more especially as Maulevrier gave her most of his company,
and entertained her with an account of his Black Forest adventures, and
all the fine things he had said to the fair-haired, blue-eyed Baden
girls, who had sold him photographs or wild strawberries, or had
awakened the echoes of the hills with the music of their rustic flutes.

Fraeulein was perfectly aware that her mission upon this particular
afternoon was not to let Lady Lesbia out of her sight for an instant, to
hear every word the young lady s